Samdok - Sveriges Museer

Edited by Eva Fägerborg & Elin von UngeSamdokISSN 1651-1581ISBN 978-91-633-2769-81

connecting collectingSamdok e-serie ISSN 1651-1581:Perspektiv på intervjuer. Genus, generation och kulturmöten (Perspectiveson Interviews). Edited by Karin Lövgren. Stockholm 2002.Beskrivningens metodik. Om att sätta ord på det upplevda. (The Methodology of Description).Edited by Maria Eriksson. Stockholm 2002.Connecting Collecting. Edited by Eva Fägerborg and Elin von Unge. Stockholm 2008.Samdok/Nordiska MuseetBox 27820SE-11593 Stockholmwww.nordiskamuseet.se/samdokSamdok e-serie ISSN 1651-1581ISBN 978-91-633-2769-8© Samdok/Nordiska museet and the authorsDesign: Johanna FinneProduction: underhuset.comCover photos: Gym culture project, Charlotte von Friedrichs©Nordiska Museet,Packet of lozenges from the exhibition The Big Collector, Mats Landin©NordiskaMuseet, Scissors and knives from Landvetter Airport, Arne Persson©Länsmuseet Varberg.Translation and copyediting Alan Crozier

connecting collecting: prefacePrefaceDuring two intensive days, 15–16 November 2007, delegatesfrom nineteen countries gathered for the conferenceConnecting Collecting at the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm.With the conference we also celebrated the thirtieth anniversaryof the Swedish museum network Samdok. Thiswas founded in 1977 by the museums of cultural historywho wished to cooperate on the collection of materialgeared to the present day. There is great need today fordialogue and collaboration in the international museumcommunity, and we found it important not just to celebrateSamdok’s anniversary with an international conferencebut also to use this as an opportunity to initiatecooperation across borders. It was possible to hold theconference thanks to financial support from the Bank ofSweden Tercentenary Foundation, and an internationalnetwork for the museums’ collecting issues has also beenformed.When we now publish the papers from the conference,it is in the hope that this contribution to internationalexchange of experience will give rise to new – andnecessary – discussion and collaboration.Christina MattssonDirector, Nordiska MuseetChair of the Samdok Council4

connecting collecting: contentsContentsEva Fägerborg & Elin von UngeIntroduction................................................................................................................7Opening and welcome addressesBirgitta DahlConnecting Collecting – in a spiritof mutual respect................................................................................................9Hans Manneby ...................................................................................................12Christina Mattsson..........................................................................................13Eva FägerborgThe Swedish Samdok network...................................................... 14…Elizabeth Ellen MerrittBeyond the cabinet of curiosities:Towards a modern rationale of collecting......................17Ciraj RassoolMuseum and heritage documentationand collecting beyond modernism:Lessons from South Africa for the future......................26Lykke L PedersenCelebrating in the public, private and virtualspace. Contemporary study of the Danes and theCrown Prince’s Wedding in 2004..............................................34Rebecca ThomlinsonCollecting the here and now: Contemporarycollecting at the BPMA ..........................................................................40Inger Jensen & Thomas Michael WalleNorwegian yesterday, today, tomorrow?A presentation of a project on recentimmigration to Norway..........................................................................46Christine FredriksenYouth across the border .......................................................................52Kylea LittleContemporary collecting at Tyne andWear Museums: An overview focusingon outreach work............................................................................................58Katty H Wahlgren & Fredrik SvanbergArchaeological collecting, thecontemporary and public involvement............................62Jan GarnertWhen old collections are renewed.Exploring cultural meanings of radio receiversand satellite dishes........................................................................................70Anna Kota´nskaThe photographic collection in theHistorical Museum of Warsaw ....................................................755

connecting collecting: contentsThomas UlrichA changing approach – a changing identity:Evaluating collection and collecting strategiesat the Norwegian Telecom Museum ...................................82Eva-Sofi ErnstellWho is the keeper? Collecting andstoring in the National Swedish Museumsof Military History........................................................................................87Catherine MarshallPutting collections to work. Somestrategies from the first decade of theIrish Museum of Modern Art.........................................................91Zelda BaveystockRelevance and representation. The stateof contemporary collecting in the UK..............................96Riina ReinveltThe collections of the National Museumand stereotypes...............................................................................................101Leif PareliThe future of Sami heritage in museumcollections .............................................................................................................105Jan DolákDocumentation of the recent periodin the Czech Republic............................................................................108Ilze KnokaCollecting contemporaneity in Latvia:Communicative and professional aspects ................110Anna ŻakiewiczDon’t look a gift horse in the mouth.The problem of wanted and unwanteddonations to the museum collection.................................113Tanja Roženbergar ŠegaContemporary society in Slovene museums .........119Author presentations................................................................................123…Appendix:Connecting Collecting conference programme6

connecting collecting: introductionIntroductionEva Fägerborg & Elin von UngeThe reality of everyday life is, to a large extent, dependingon who we are, what we do and where we live. For thisreason, historical and contemporary contexts are essentialfor museum work all over the world. Present day as aspecific field of study within the museum sector thereforeevokes new and shared questions. The global economy,migration issues and climate change are just a few examplesof universal concerns that affect the societal contextin which people today live. Subsequently, these mattersare of the outmost importance in contemporary museumwork.Now, at the start of the twenty-first century, we arefacing changes and inventions that directly affect ouropportunities to communicate. It has become easier tolearn about other people’s outlooks, experiences, andworking methods. Not only has it become easier to travelphysically around the globe, we can also travel in just afew seconds within and between different virtual spaces.This means that our perceptions of dimensions such astime and place are drastically changing.The global society enables a flow of people, products,and ideas, but at the same time it creates new antagonisms.Museums are thus faced with the shared challengeof problematizing the work of collection in relation tothe world and the conditions in which they act. It is becomingincreasingly important to develop our activitiesthrough international dialogue and cooperation. This isan issue for the future for museums in all countries.In 1977 the Swedish museums of cultural history establishedSamdok, as a collaborative body for organizingthe collecting of artefacts in the age of mass production.Samdok has, of course, constantly gone through changes.During these thirty years, different issues have been infocus, and the working methods have varied. In internationalterms Samdok was an innovation in the museumworld, which attracted attention at an early stage, bothfor the focus on the present and for its methodology.Nowadays contemporary issues are on the museumagenda all over the world, and in many countries collectionwork reflects society of today. It therefore felt naturalthat Samdok’s thirtieth anniversary should be celebratedby looking forward and looking beyond the borders ofSweden, hence the decision to arrange an internationalconference.One idea behind the conference was that it wouldbe the starting point for an international network withthe focus on collection issues. The aim of the conferencewas thus highlighted in its title – Connecting Collecting. Byregarding collecting as a key to the future of museumsin a global community and by bringing together experiencesand perspectives from different countries, theconference aimed to lay the foundation for internationalcollaboration.Advance information about the conference was distributedin the autumn of 2006, followed by an invitationwith a call for papers in March 2007. The initiativearoused considerable interest around the world, bringingdelegates from nineteen countries. Besides lectures7

connecting collecting: introductionby the two specially invited keynote speakers, ElizabethE Merritt and Ciraj Rassool, there were sixteen presentations.With illustrative examples and different perspectives,they discussed both how museums collect andhow the collections are used today. Meeting in an internationalcontext and talking about one’s own specificexperiences and circumstances reveals both similaritiesand differences. A range of theoretical, methodological,and empirical examples and attitudes came together,clearly showing how views of collecting issues are relatedto national and political contexts and are simultaneouslypart of an ongoing international discussion aboutthe museum as both a part of and a creator of culturalheritage.In the final session of the conference a networkwas established and a working group was formed. Thenetwork has been given the name Collectingnet and willinitially communicate through a newsletter. In the forthcomingprocess of developing the aims and objectivesand initiating a dialogue with ICOM, the network facesits first challenges. The dialogue has begun by raisingquestions about how international cooperation on collectingand collections should be demarcated. The interestsand contributions of the members will subsequentlyguide and decide the shape of the network.In this publication we have assembled the majority ofthe conference papers, revised as articles suitable for theprint medium. There are also three contributions whichdid not feature in the conference proceedings. This introductionis followed by four opening addresses about thepurpose and context of the conference, and a brief presentationof Samdok. Then come the in-depth articles ofthe two keynote speakers, with a difference in characterwhich also reflects the wide span of approaches to theconference theme. The subsequent papers are structuredin three loose groups: presentations and discussions ofcontemporary studies and collecting projects, with examplesfrom Scandinavia and Britain, represent the firstgroup. Next come contributions exploring different attitudesto the work associated with the museums’ existingcollections. The papers in the final section concernboth collections and collecting, emphasizing how museums’work with these is governed by prevailing politicalconditions and traditional academic structures; they alsoshow how the museums themselves create stereotypedideas in the public concerning what the collectionsshould contain.All in all, the texts display a diversity of approaches tothe museums’ work with collecting issues in the presentday. The publication will thereby, we hope, contribute tointensified discussion of these issues – which are so relevantto the core of the museums, now and in the future.8

Opening and welcome addressesConnecting Collecting– in a spirit of mutual respectBirgitta DahlChairman of the Board, Nordiska MuseetFormer Speaker of Parliament, former Minister of EnvironmentHonourable audience, distinguished guests, speakers andcontributors, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends!A warm welcome to Nordiska Museet, to Stockholm, toSweden on this beautifully sunny November day! I hopeyou will have time to enjoy our beautiful city! Above allwelcome to this international conference on collecting asa key to the future of museums in a global community:Connecting Collecting – in a spirit of mutual respect!We have taken the initiative for this conference as arelevant way of celebrating that Samdok – the Swedishmuseum network for contemporary studies and collecting– has now been in operation for 30 years. Thisyear we are also celebrating that this building has beenin operation as a museum for 100 years – although theFoundation Nordiska Museet was established alreadyin 1880 by Arthur Hazelius. We do believe that nothingcould be a more appropriate way of celebrating our anniversariesand cultural heritage than to initiate a newinternational forum for dialogue and collaboration oncollecting issues.We are indeed very proud of our staff for their excellentwork in preparing for the conference. Thankyou! And we are deeply grateful to the Bank of SwedenTercentenary Foundation for their generous financialsupport to our Conference and to our Research School.Thank you!In our presentation we wrote:We invite museum professionals and scholars to ...... discuss and share experiences on collecting in contemporarysociety.... discuss and share experiences of contemporary use ofcollections acquired in earlier scientific, ideological and politicalcontexts.... discuss, and hopefully agree on, establishing an internationalmuseum Collecting Network, which may develop into a newinternational ICOM committee. Objectives and scope, initialplanning.Dear friends, we are indeed very happy to see somany prominent participants from so many countriesand museums! Once again – welcome!In our letter of invitation a year ago we wrote:“Today, many museums of cultural and social history aroundthe world are engaged in contemporary issues and also devotepart of their research and collecting to the society of today.New museums are established, facing rapid structural changes,migration and trans-local social life. How should they actwhen building collections? Most museums also house oldcollections acquired in earlier scientific, ideological and political9

Opening and welcome addressescontexts. How can they use these collections to discuss issuesof relevance for people today, and how should new acquisitionscorrespond with already existing collections?---We believe that an intensified and extended dialogue andcollaboration across borders would be beneficial for thedevelopment of museum practices, and we therefore invitemuseum professionals and scholars to the conference inNovember 2007 and to initial discussions on the formationof a Collecting Network for museums of cultural and socialhistory.”And here we are together looking forward to two days ofintense dialogue and, hopefully, future cooperation!Many of our old museums, like Nordiska Museet,were founded under the impression of the flourishingpatriotic movements of the nineteenth century. Manyold and new nation states wanted to establish and expresstheir cultural identity after centuries of wars, occupation,maybe disruption. There was a strong wish topreserve the cultural heritage for future generations.Many times, as here in Sweden, this was achievedat the last minute in the period of industrialization, urbanizationand emigration – 20 per cent of our populationemigrated because of poverty and lack of freedom.Strong actors in this struggle for our national culturewere popular movements, the homestead movement andthe handicraft movement – along with our schools anduniversities.Today we see a similar movement in the nations thathave achieved independence during the last 50–60 years.When the United Nations was founded in 1945 it had 51members – today nearly 200. Many of these ‘new’ nationshave experienced colonialism, oppression, exploitation,poverty, maybe also civil war and cruel dictators.It is evident for many reasons that they want to manifesttheir cultural heritage and identity. Many of these countriesare also in the process of radical economic and socialchanges creating economic development and threatsto their cultural traditions.Today we live in a new world where cultures meetin countries and across boarders. Many nation statesinclude many peoples with different languages, traditions,religions. Some peoples live in different states, asthe Sami people here in Norway, Sweden, Finland andRussia or the Kurds in the Middle East. Most of us live ina multicultural environment.This has not always been the case. When I was aschoolgirl and a young woman, Sweden was still an extremelyhomogeneous society. The outside world wasunknown and foreigners very rare. Less than 10 per centcould speak any other language than Swedish. We hada Lutheran State Church and its faith was taught in ourschools. Other religions were detested. There was nothinglike rights for minorities.This has all changed. Today all children learn Englishin school – most of them two or more languages. Twentyper cent of our inhabitants are immigrants from all partsof the world. More than 100 nationalities live in Sweden.Their children have the right to learn their mother tonguein school – together with Swedish and English. The rightsof the minorities – the Sami people, the Swedish Finns,the Tornedalers, the Roma and the Jews – have been protectedby law since 1999 when we became partners of theEuropean Charter for Regional and Minority Languagesand The Framework Convention for the Protection ofNational Minorities. It was one of my most rewardingexperiences as Speaker of the Swedish Parliament to presideover the session where these decisions were takenwith representatives of all these groups in their traditionaldresses present in the galleries of the plenary. Just nowour main exhibition SÁPMI tells the story of the Samipeople. We do not have a state church. Religions live sideby side. The Catholic Church is our second biggest denomination,Islam the third. Three of my grandchildrenlive in a suburb of Stockholm, Rinkeby, where 90 percent of the inhabitants are immigrants and the Muslimchildren an absolute majority in the schools.This is a new reality, a major change that has takenplace during two generations. We cannot ignore that wedo have some problems with relations and integration.But none the less, there is no doubt that our ‘new Swedes’and our new contacts with the rest of the world, withother cultures and religions, have greatly enriched ourlife – in daily details as well as in the perception of theworld. This has given us new chances, new experiences,and new challenges to form our identity.10

Opening and welcome addressesThis new reality has also changed, renewed, andtransformed the commission for the museums of culturaland social history. Our task is, of course, to preserve,document and display our cultural heritage. But it is alsoto present the meeting between cultures and religions inour countries and between countries and continents. Itis to evidence the process of change in and between oursocieties. It is to show the realities of our societies – thisworld – today.In this work we need cooperation and dialogue, weneed to learn from each other, we need to stimulate andencourage each other. I – we – do hope that this conferenceConnecting Collecting will be the starting point of sucha process. I wish you much success in your importantendeavours.Distinguished guests, with these words I declare thisinternational conference Connecting Collecting opened!11

Opening and welcome addressesHans MannebyDirector General, Västarvet,Chairman of ICOM SwedenDear colleagues and friends,In my short speech, I will go straight to what is comingup at the end of this conference, or rather, what mightcome up after this conference, and briefly comment ona paper included in the document file given to all delegates:Formation of an international museum network for collectingissues.Last year Samdok introduced ICOM Sweden to theidea of celebrating 30 years of Samdok activities, withan international conference on collections and contemporaryissues. The idea from Samdok was, and still is, tobroaden the discussion on collecting issues, and to openup for more international perspectives and more internationaldialogue within this field.The idea is also to work for the establishment of aninternational museum network, for the fundamentalmuseum mission of collecting. If this proves to be a goodidea that meets real needs and demands from professionalsin the museum world, the next logical step wouldbe to try to develop a new International Committee oncollecting issues within the ICOM system.The board of ICOM Sweden found this idea greatand we have supported the project from the first day, notleast the tempting prospect of seeing an InternationalCollecting Committee within ICOM in the near future.We support the idea because we simply think that membersof ICOM will benefit greatly from committees dealingwith fundamental museum tasks in an international,problem-oriented, theoretical, context of principal andpractice – in this specific case, collecting.Today there are 30 International Committees withinICOM, each devoted either to the study of a particulartype of museum, for example City Museums, RegionalMuseums, University Museums, Modern Art Museums,Historic House Museums, or devoted to a specificmuseum-related discipline such as Conservation,Documentation, Exhibition Exchange, Security.Many specialized committees are of course from timeto time also concerned with the challenges facing collectionswithin their own special field, or their own specialkind of museum. But strangely enough, there is noInternational Committee with specific focus on the typeof questions that will be discussed at this conference.Well, we will see after the conference what will happenwith the idea of creating an international museumnetwork for collecting issues. First we have two fullConnecting Collecting days with many interesting papersand perspectives on this theme, and this is what we allare looking forward to right now.Thank you!Hans Manneby passed away in March 2008. The Swedish museumcommunity has thereby lost a person who meant a greatdeal for the furtherance of international museum issues.The editors.12

Opening and welcome addressesChristina MattssonDirector, Nordiska Museet,Chair of the Samdok CouncilDear friends,The Nordiska Museet has over a million objects in differentstores. The objects are arranged in a practical way,so that textiles are in one space, chests in another, glassin a third, and so on. This also means that we have a reasonablygood idea of what we have in the different categories.What we see is above all our ancestors’ history,our grandparents’ history. We can also see our parents’history. But where is the history of our own time and ourchildren’s history?Our museum collections are already very large andwe are hesitant about the thought of collecting evenmore. But we also hesitate for other reasons. What arewe to collect? Should we collect everything or shouldwe choose? And if so, how do we choose? This was howSamdok first came into existence.Samdok is an association involving the Swedish museumsof cultural history. Samdok was created to directthe museums’ attention away from the old agrarian societyand towards the rapidly changing industrial society.With the aid of Samdok, the idea was to fill a gapin the museums, the gap that represents perhaps themost dramatic period in the life of individual people inSweden: the whole transition from self-sufficiency to theinformation society. Samdok distributed responsibilityfor the work of documentation, but it was also interestedin developing the continuous study of everyday life inSweden.Samdok is a shared resource for museums in Sweden.It has been the task of the Nordiska Museet, as the largestmuseum of cultural history in the country, to be thebackbone of the organization. Now we want to shareideas and experiences with the international museumcommunity.I would like to bid you all very welcome.13

Opening and welcome addressesThe Swedish Samdok networkEva FägerborgSamdok Secretariat, Nordiska MuseetIt is a great pleasure to see you all here, and I am glad toconvey greetings from colleagues from other countries,in different parts of the world, who have taken an interestin the conference but could not attend.With increasing awareness of the power of culturalheritage, museums as creators of cultural heritage arenow intensely debated as actors in society. They are producersof images of reality that are exhibited, preservedand stored in artefact collections and archives. Thisforces museum professionals to reflect continuously onthe impact and consequences of their work. In Sweden,Samdok – the cultural history museums’ network forcontemporary studies and collecting – is a forum forsuch reflections and discussions. In the latest issue (no2, 2007) of our periodical Samtid & museer, also availableon-line, you will find a more detailed presentation; here Ishall just give a brief orientation about our work.Samdok currently has about 80 members – countymuseums, municipal museums, central museums, specialistmuseums, along with some other institutions. Themembers get together in working groups, known as pools,and the core of Samdok work is the studies and collectioncarried on in the pools by the respective museums.The work is supported by the Samdok Secretariat locatedat the Nordiska Museet, the Samdok Council withrepresentatives of different kinds of museums, and theResearch Council which is integrated in the NordiskaMuseet’s Research Council.The pool system is perhaps the best-known characteristicof Samdok. In eight groups, representativesfrom the member museums meet regularly around contemporaryissues and the task of investigating and collectingmaterial concerning contemporary phenomena.The pools ventilate museum projects, theoretical, methodologicaland ethical questions; they invite researchersfrom universities, organize field seminars and study visits.These recurrent meetings give museum professionalsspecific opportunities to develop their work mutually.I wish to emphasize that Samdok is not a unit or acentralized body, it is its members. And the Samdok familyis a heterogeneous crowd of museums with differentaims and directions, different needs, competences andworking conditions.What is common is the mission to contribute to adeeper understanding of human beings, of people in society,through contemporary studies and collecting. InSamdok, the focus is on people’s lives, activities, experiences,conditions and values related to time, space andsocial contexts.Generally speaking, museum collecting is a matter ofexploring relations between human beings and objects,settings and issues/phenomena in society and creatingmaterial that can be useful for many purposes. Museumsapply various collecting methods and perspectives,depending on the aims in the specific cases. WithinSamdok, the acquisition of objects is mostly a part of theethnographic fieldwork, with the research questions asthe guide to the choice of objects. This contextual col-14

Opening and welcome addresseslecting provides good opportunities to combine materialand immaterial aspects, and to develop different forms ofdialogue and cooperation with people in society.The projects generate a variety of material: interviews,field notes, artefacts, photographs, sound andvideo recordings, and documents.This broad approach to collecting has dominated fora long time, although Samdok arose from the need tosupport the collecting of contemporary, mass-producedobjects. It started as an organization for co-operationin collecting present-day artefacts and continued withdocumenting present-day life. These basic tasks remain.In the course of time, Samdok has also become a forumfor scholarly discussions on contemporary culture andsociety, a forum for reflections on cultural heritage as aproduct of collecting, a forum for sharing experiences,professional development and further education. Andthe network is continually exploring new fields of studyand trying new working methods.For the future, museums in Sweden, as in othercountries, need to develop their work on a global basis,theoretically as well as in museum practices. Global perspectivesinvolve collaboration, and I can promise thatSamdok museums are ready to take part.I will finish this short introduction by presenting avisual tour around Sweden, consisting of photographsthat are part of a number of Samdok museum studies ondifferent themes and belonging to different projects, carriedout for various purposes. This is a small selection,to give you an idea of how present-day life in Sweden isdepicted through the lenses of museum photographers.From the slideshow Images of contemporary Sweden, consistingof 143 pictures, a few are presented on the next page. Theslideshow themes were: Ways of life, Traditions and rituals,Coffee break, Rooms for life, Enterprising spirit, Large-scaleindustry, Tracking industrial society, At the end of life, The use ofnature, and Celebrating Sweden.Photograhers: 1. Anna Hadders, Regional MuseumKristianstad, 2. Charlotte von Friedrichs, NordiskaMuseet, 3. Anders Forsell, Västmanland County Museum,4, 5. Daryoush Tahmasebi, Norrbotten Museum,6. Jessika Wallin, Nordiska Museet. 7. Krister Hägglund,Skellefteå Museum, 8. Elisabeth Boogh, Stockholm CountyMuseum, 9. Ramón Maldonado, Stockholm City Museum,10. Jenny Thornell, Malmö Museum.15

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connecting collecting: merrittBeyond the cabinet of curiosities:Towards a modern rationale of collectingElizabeth Ellen MerrittAmerican Association of MuseumsThere is an emerging consensus in the UnitedStates that museums ought to have formal, written,board-approved collections plans that createa rationale for how they shape their collections.The impetus for this comes in part from increasedawareness of the additional resources needed tocare responsibly for the vast collections museumshold in the public trust. Dialogue in the museumfield has led to the conclusion that sound collectionsplanning begins with the creation of an intellectualframework to guide decision-making.The Institute of Museum and Library Services estimatesthere are approximately 17,500 museums in theUS – about one museum for every 17,500 residents. Thisdiverse assembly includes zoos, aquariums, botanic gardens,science museums, art museums, children’s museums,transportation museums, history museums, historichouses, as well as specialty museums focusing on a widevariety of subjects from clocks, quilts, and typewriters todentistry and funerary customs. Almost three quarters ofUS museums are privately governed, non-governmental,nonprofit organizations, meaning they have been grantedtax-exempt status by the federal government. Most ofthe rest are government museums, city, state, or federalinstitutions, or a mixture of both (a private organizationcooperating with a government entity to run a museum.)A tiny number are for-profit.A typical US museum has:• annual operating expenses of $783,000• 6 full-time and 4 part-time paid staff, and 60 volunteers• a building of nearly 23,000 square feet,which costs $3 per square foot to operate• almost 34,000 visitors a year• a $6 admission fee (though the vast majority offer freedays or other methods of providing free admissions)More than one fourth of these museums were foundedin the last quarter of the twentieth century, many spurredby the US bicentennial in 1976. AAM’s data suggests thatmore than 500 museums opened in that year, and as manyas 3,000 museums were founded in the 1970s overall. 1This proliferation has resulted in increased demands onsources of funding. For private, nonprofit museums, only13 percent of their support comes from local, state, or federalgovernment, and 40 percent comes from private andcorporate philanthropy. On average, private nonprofitmuseums earn more than a third of their income fromactivities such as membership and admission fees, spacerental, museum store sales and food services. The medianamount contributed to annual operated expenses fromdraw on the endowment is about 12 percent.1 Unless otherwise noted, data cited in this paper come from AAM’spublished research, primarily Meritt, ed (2006).17

connecting collecting: merrittSomewhere between $4.5 and $6 billion dollars inprivate charitable and public support is provided to USmuseums each year. This charitable support, like tax exemptstatus, is given with the understanding that museumsare educational organizations that operate in thepublic interest. Each museum identifies in its missionstatement whom it serves and how it spends its moneydelivering on this mission. A museum must constantlyprove that this mission is worthwhile and that it is effectivelyfulfilling it. Neither government nor philanthropicsupport is guaranteed.The cost of caring for collectionsUS museums hold roughly 986 million items in the publictrust, and spend about $1 billion each year on collectionscare (a little more than one dollar per object). Themuseum community is making the case that this is notenough, that it actually needs significantly more supportto fulfill these stewardship responsibilities. And there is,certainly, documented need:• 89 percent of US museums do not have adequatestorage facilities for all their collections• 80 percent have no emergency preparednessplan that covers collections ortrained staff to carry out such a plan• 63 percent have no paid staff to performconservation or preservation work• 45 percent do not have collectionsmanagement policies 2• 14 percent have no environmental controls(Public Trust at Risk, 2005)Collections do not generally earn their own way –more collections do not, as a rule, bring more earnedrevenue into the museum. And donated collections arerarely accompanied by endowed support. So increasedsupport for collections care will have to be philanthropic– either government or private. But by asking for more2 Unpublished data from AAM’s Museum Assessment Programparticipants.money to care for the artistic, cultural and natural heritagethey hold in the public trust, museums open themselvesup to close scrutiny regarding how well they arefulfilling their stewardship responsibilities. What is eachUS citizen getting for his or her $3 per year?The primary justifications that museums give for collecting,as expressed in their mission statements, are topreserve these resources and make them accessible to thepublic. But is ‘the good’ of the public really what drivescollecting? Do museums accomplish these goals wellenough to justify the support provided by the public?And are museums the most efficient way to fulfill thesefunctions?Museums’ role as protectorsof collectionsFirst let us examine preservation, starting with the basicfunction of protecting collections from risks. This subjectis getting a lot of attention right now, both becauseof recent natural disasters, and because of the appallingstatistic cited above regarding the lack of emergency preparednessplanning in US museums. Museums presentthemselves as bank vaults for cultural, scientific, andartistic resources – if the public entrusts this materialto them, they will keep it safe for them. But is there adownside to this model? Sometimes it seems as if museumsare simply herding together important material so itcan all be threatened in one place. (An entire collection– if not properly stored and cared for – is in danger if adisaster occurs.) Museums may (or may not) do a goodjob of mitigating the smaller, day to day and month tomonth risks like fluctuations of temperature and humidity,light, etc, but often do a bad job of contending withrare catastrophic events that can’t be prevented and onlyimperfectly mitigated.Let’s examine this point. Museums tend to concentratecollections, and therefore risk, a questionablestrategy in a world of increasingly common (and hard topredict) natural and man-made disasters. A number ofmuseums in the United States either house the majorityof a given artist’s work, or constitute the largest singlepublicly displayed collection of that person’s work. In18

connecting collecting: merritteither case, they hold the archives and documentary materialthat provide invaluable context for scholarship onany of the artist’s oeuvre, wherever it is housed. And theseinstitutions – for example, the Clyfford Still Museum inDenver, Colo, the Andy Warhol Museum, in Pittsburgh,Pa, the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass,and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, N Mex –are quite proud, justifiably so, of having built such powerhousecollections.A striking example is the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum inBiloxi, Miss, which houses more than 300 works andthe definitive archives of George Ohr, the ‘Mad Potterof Biloxi’ In fall 2005, the museum was in the midst ofbuilding a new campus designed by Frank Gehry, consistingof a cluster of small buildings, on a scenic pieceof land a couple hundred yards from the Atlantic Ocean.On the morning of August 29, Hurricane Katrina pickedup one of the enormous casino barges moored off thecoast, and deposited it on top of the museum’s campus.Fortunately, the building was unfinished and thereforeno collections housed in it were destroyed. In light of thisexperience, the museum is collaborating with other localinstitutions on plans for off-site storage several milesinland from the coast. Nevertheless, this incident dramatizesthe risks inherent in concentrating collections andrecords in risk-prone areas.If the ultimate public benefit is continued access tothese collections in the long run, perhaps it would bemore responsible to assess risk and distribute works collectivelyrather than collecting in service of individualmissions. Certainly there is an advantage to scholars beingable to examine such comprehensive works in onesetting, but they cope with not having this advantagewith the works of many artists. Perhaps it is not responsiblefor a museum to hold the comprehensive collectionsor archives of a given artist. For some museums inparticularly high risk areas, maybe it is not responsiblefor them to have certain works at all, if they cannot adequatelymitigate the risks.Besides the possibility of natural disaster – flood,fire, earthquake, mudslides, hurricanes, tornados –there is the danger of simple extinction. Museums cango broke, and close. AAM’s list of museums that haveclosed in the last few years, which is not comprehensive,contains more than 80 institutions. What happens to thecollections in such instances? In the case of art museums,it is likely that the collections, if seized by creditors,would go on to new owners with a vested interest inprotecting them, even if they were no longer in the publicdomain. With natural history collections, this is notnecessarily the case. There is at least one infamous caseof a major US university that decided to deaccession itsnatural history collections, many of which ended up indumpsters.A museum does not even have to close to put itscollections at risk. In the US, there has been a spate ofuniversity museums in the news because their parent organization,the university itself, decided that it wantedto sell collections to add to the university’s endowment.For example, the Maier Museum of Art is wrestling withits parent, Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va, overthe sale of four important works. The school was puton notice by its accrediting organization that it had anunacceptably high draw on its endowment (though theendowment itself is quite sizable) and it seized on sellingworks from the museum as a way to shore up its finances.Given that parent organizations may always puttheir overarching mission above that of the museum, onemight argue that any collections belonging to museumsin parent organizations (and 35 percent of them do) areinherently at risk.Museum’s role as gate keepersto collectionsSo much for some weak points in museums’ claim to beuber-preservationists. What about their role in makingcollections accessible? Public museums evolved in a differentage when:• The only easy access to their collections was physicaland in-person (with the laborious alternativeof snail mail correspondence with the curator).• There was functionally no good way for an individualto conduct a global search across institutions.19

connecting collecting: merrittThe Internet has provided a way to separate physicalfrom intellectual access in a way that really is a paradigmshift – one museums have not fully incorporated intotheir thinking and ways of operating. Research and interpretationincreasingly start with electronically availabledata and images. Thus these activities can be partiallydivorced from the issue of who actually cares for the material.Museums mount digital information about theircollections on the Web, and frequently mount digital exhibitions.Recent research by the Media and TechnologyCommittee of the AAM shows that museums typicallyhave twice as many visitors to their websites as they do totheir physical museums. For some museums in the survey,the online audience was ten times more than theirphysical audience.And, if the main issue is to know where collectionsare and be able to access them (or access relevant information)would not this goal be as well served by putting alarge chunk of these resources into electronic catalogues,metadata, search tools for knowing where this materialis (whoever holds it), and then leverage access in otherways? Typically a museum only has 4 or 5 percent of itscollections on exhibit. (Less, at a natural history museumwith large research collections, more at an arts centerwith relatively small collections.) If museums are desperatelyovercrowded, as they say, perhaps there is a role forencouraging private owners of collections to make thempublicly accessible. Such an alternate system or preservationand access could release museums of the sole responsibilityof housing collections that benefit the public.As long as an object is accessible to exhibit designers,educators, and researchers, does it actually need to beowned by the museum? Particularly when museums reportan acute dearth of adequate storage?This might be achieved through a system that encouragesa donation of rights similar to land trust orbuilding preservation easements. In such systems, theprivate owner gives up certain rights in return for a taxbenefit. An organization, such as a land trust may exerciseoversight or stewardship of such easements. Perhapsprivate collectors of art or antiquities could donate accessrights to the public in return for tax breaks. A certifiedconservator and registrar could assess the works,their storage conditions, and documentation periodically,as prerequisite of the arrangement. The private ownerwould make information on the work publicly accessiblevia the Internet, perhaps on a national database of collectionsresources. And the owner would make the worksaccessible to scholars on a regular basis, as well as forpublic exhibition through loan to museums.Are museums caring for the rightcollections?The data cited above reveals the vast gap between the resourcesmuseum have and those they need to adequatelycare for this material. Before we can ask private donors,foundations, or the government to pour more moneyinto taking care of these collections, they can rightly ask:does it all belong in a museum, is it worth our money topreserve? Unfortunately, the answer is a resounding ‘no.’Anyone who works in a museum, in the course of browsingthrough the storage rooms, or participate in an inventory,comes across something, probably a lot of somethings,which elicit the reaction ‘What in the world wassomeone thinking when they accepted this?’ Sometimesthe thing itself does not belong in a museum; sometimesit is simply out of place in that particular museum. In fact,the US Accreditation Commission finds this is a widespreadproblem, even in high performing museums, andis collectively a huge drain on museum resources.This situation makes a certain sense. Many museums,in their founding and their operations, are driven by privategoals, not a desire for the public good. Founders,donors, directors, curators, have their own motivationsfor building collections. Private collectors and museumfounders often look for some form of immortality.Directors and curators gain professional status andthe intellectual satisfaction of pursuing a private vision.None of these motivations are bad, but they do not necessarilybest serve the public good. Look, for illustration,back to our examples of museums concentrating risk byholding comprehensive collections of individual artists.Definitely good for the museums’ reputations, maybe notso good for the public. Also, while sometimes the curato-20

connecting collecting: merrittrial vision of individual collectors is excellent – IsabellaStewart Gardner is a case in point – many other foundershad, shall we say, less than stellar judgment regardingwhat deserved to be preserved in a museum.To further complicate matters, there is now in the USan explicit expectation (codified in national standards)that the community the museum serves should have ameaningful voice in how the museum serves their needs.Logically, this expectation includes input into key decisions,including how the museum uses their resources,and what it will collect. That throws into question thesacrosanct nature of the existing collections, which wereshaped by different expectations, and may not do a goodjob of meeting the community’s needs.The reasoning that drives these decisions is not peculiarto founders or curators. It is deeply embedded inhuman psychology. To illuminate this, I would like to digressbriefly to the field of economics – the study of howpeople interact with resources in general. Sometimes weassume that bigger is better, but actually collections oftenadhere to the law of diminishing return. Once availableresources of space, staff time, or money are exceeded,adding material to the collection actually diminishesits overall utility by contributing to overcrowding anda backlog of documentation. This perspective casts thedecision to acquire a new item, even a ‘free’ donation, ina new light. All museums, no matter how wealthy, have alimit to their resources. Any given choice to add an objectto the collection may preclude later, better choices.What do I mean by this? Let’s look at another economicconcept: sunk costs. This is easiest to explain byexample. Someone buys a movie ticket, then realizes thatrather than being the documentary biopic she thought itwas, it is actually a low-brow slasher flick. (Or visa versa.)The cost of the movie ticket is a sunk cost – she asked butthe movie theater won’t refund it. At this point she caneither sit through the movie, which she hates, and wastetime in addition to money, or she can go do somethingelse, like have a nice walk in the park, and ONLY wastethe money. The sad fact is, most people will sit throughthe movie so that the purchase price was not ‘wasted.’With collections, there is also a tendency to continue tothrow resources at bad choices. Because the museum hascurated a costume collection for decades, they continueto do so. Because they have a collection of 355 historictypewriters, they accept the 356th. The staff may realize,in fact that the costume collection no longer fits themuseum’s focus, or that the typewriter collection fills noexisting need, but they are constrained by tradition.It is also useful to examine a related concept: opportunitycosts. In economics, this term refers to the cost ofsomething in terms of an opportunity forgone (and thebenefits that could be received from that opportunity),or the most valuable alternative that was not chosen. Theappropriate question to ask, when allocating scarce museumresources, is not ‘Is this a good acquisition?’ butrather ‘Is this the best thing I could add to the collection?’These are not neutral decisions, because accepting onething, and using up space, time, and resources to takecare of it, may well mean you can’t accept something elselater. This is particularly true because deaccessioning itselfis time and labor intensive (not to mention its potentialfor generating bad publicity).To conclude so far: Sometimes we get trapped intocalculating how much time and effort and money wehave already spent acquiring and taking care of material– but these are sunk costs. The appropriate questionis, what are the opportunity costs of maintaining exactlywhat you have, or adding more collections of the samekind, versus making different choices? Which choice hasthe largest benefit in terms of mission-delivery, serviceto your community, economic stability, etc?The great leap forward: fromcollecting to collections planningHow do we incorporate these concepts into shaping ourcollections? How do we avoid the traps of sunk costs andlost opportunity costs? There needs to be a structuredway of measuring costs and benefits and making consciouschoices about how to build a collection that maximizesthe utility of the collection however you measureit. If the collection is not to be formed by the individualvision of one person, or a compilation of the individualvisions of a bunch of people, what will guide collecting?21

connecting collecting: merrittIf not everything in the collection now belongs there,what criteria guides the choice to deaccession? How dowe provide a common framework for decision-makingthat reflects an institutional, not an individual vision, andthat consciously strives to serve the public good? In theUnited States, we are moving towards consensus that thisshould be done through the creation of a collections planthat establishes the institutional vision guiding the contentof the collections.To explore the issue of collections planning inmore depth, in 2002, AAM partnered with the NationalMuseum of American History to hold the NationalCollections Planning Colloquium, which brought together80 people representing 36 museums of all typesand sizes from across the country. Much of the materialI present in the last half of this paper comes out of thisconvening and subsequent discussions with the field. 3And this is a good example of how the museum fieldcomes to consensus about standards and best practices– people from diverse museums talking to each other,comparing notes, and seeing where we can agree.Colloquium participants identified a collections plan as:... a plan that guides the content of the collections and leadsstaff in a coordinated and uniform direction over time to refineand expand the value of the collections in a predeterminedway. Plans are time-limited and identify specific goals to beachieved. They also provide a rationale for these choices andspecify how they will be achieved, who will implement the plan,when it will happen, and what it will cost.A collections plan is distinct from a collections policy,which US museum standards have required since1999. Policies establish general guidelines for behaviorand delegate authority for implementation. While theyare reviewed on a regular basis, they are not inherentlytied to a timeline, and do not become out of date on aparticular schedule. They change as they need to withchanging circumstances. Unlike plans, they are not inherentlytied to schedules or resources.3 The conclusions of the colloquium are reported in depthin Gardner & Merritt 2004.Well, don’t museums already have collections plans?One might think that museums, having hundreds of yearsof collective experience, would at least know what theyare taking in, and why. And in fact, some filters regardingwhat comes in the door do exist. The first of these isthe mission statement, which defines who the museumserves and how. However, mission statements are typicallyvery broad, offering minimal guidance in makingchoices about the contents of the collection. A classicexample is the mission of the Alaska State Museum: ‘Toidentify, collect, preserve and exhibit Alaska’s materialand natural history.’This would practically justify accessioning the wholestate. The mission is only the first, very broad filter.Museums may typically have vision statements outliningwhat they want to achieve in the future that refinethis further. For example, a museum’s vision statementthat sees the organization becoming the most importantresource for local historical research in its state mightencourage strengthening its archival collections. And amuseum may have specific goals in its institutional plan,like ‘open a major new permanent paleontology exhibit’that drives collecting as well. But generally these filtersstill fall short of providing sufficient guidance to decisionsabout collecting.Collections planning fills this gap and truly institutionalizesthe process of making decisions regarding collectionsso that they are no longer individual choices butpart of a unified vision for the collections. One of thereasons it is so important for museums to create writtenplans is to make sure that everyone is, literally, on thesame page – that everyone understands and is guided bythe institutional decisions the museum has made.At the heart of the plan– the intellectual frameworkThe core of the collections plan is the intellectual framework,the underlying conceptual structure that focusesthe museum’s collecting efforts. It is built around themission and the needs of users, often organized aroundideas, concepts, stories, or interpretive themes that22

connecting collecting: merrittguide exhibits, programming, research, and collecting.It is specific enough to guide decision-making regardingcollections.Sometimes conceptual frameworks that guide wholedisciplines shift, changing the nature of the collectionsheld by such institutions. Such a shift, for example, provokedthe metamorphosis of natural history museumsfrom ‘Wunderkammers,’ cabinets of curiosity holdingindividual specimens exemplifying the diversity ofcreation, to comprehensive collectors of thousands oftaxonomic specimens illustrating genetic diversity. Thisprofound change in collecting was prompted by a newworld view based on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolutionthrough natural selection. Suddenly, species are notseen as immutable, special instances of creation, whereone specimen can exemplify the whole. Now species areseen as collections of individual variation on a theme,being acted on by natural selection. Any sufficientlydistinct and advantageous variation can be the basisfor evolution of a new species, under the right circumstances.Viewed in this framework, it is important to havehundreds of individuals of a given species, from as manydifferent localities as possible, to document and studythe relevant aspects. A different way of seeing leads to adifferent way of collecting.A similar example exists in the realm of history.Historic house museums in the United States traditionallypresented history from the point of view of the prominentwhite, male inhabitants of the household, focusingon their achievements in the realm of politics, war, andcommerce. In the late twentieth century, however, therewas a growing discontent with the narrow vision of historythis presented. What of the many other stories thatcould be told of the inhabitants of the house? What of thewomen, and the simple everyday history of what it waslike to live, and dress, and cook, and entertain? Or raiseand educate children? What of the many, many people,often slaves or indentured servants, who were needed tosupport the lifestyle of these households? What did theyexperience, and what stories would be told from theirpoints of view? Colonial Williamsburg, in Virginia, startedits life telling a rather sanitized and idealized versionof US history. Now its interpretation includes recreationsof slave auctions. These stories, in turn, require new areasof collecting to bring them to life.This intellectual framework then shapes the rest ofthe plan, which applies the framework to a close look atthe existing collections, and whether it needs to grow, orshrink, and how. A very important next step in planningis an examination of the strengths and weaknesses of thecurrent collection, and a gap analysis of what the museumhas versus what it would need to implement theintellectual framework. Note that this step may involveidentifying material the museum should not have, aswell as material it lacks. This is an approach that differs,culturally, in US museums from their European counterparts.ICOM ethics stipulates that ‘there must alwaysbe a strong presumption against the disposal of object towhich the museum has assumed formal title,’ while theAAM code of ethics for museums takes a more proactivestance, stating that ‘museums are free to improve theircollections through selective disposal ... and intentionallysacrifice objects for well-considered purposes.’Setting prioritiesWhen asked about a collections plan, museums oftenpresent a wish list of everything the museum wants toacquire. One way that a plan differs from such a list isthat it ties potential acquisitions to a broader vision ofwhy the museum wants them and sets priorities. Settingpriorities is something museums often do very badly,and collections planning is an opportunity to do it moresystematically, avoiding the dangers of lost opportunitycosts. There may be a very good reason not to takesomething ranked a low priority on your list just becausesomeone offers it to you if you have the prospect of conservingresources for a high priority item instead. Theseconversations are very difficult for staff to have outsidethe context of a unified vision and planning document.If opinions regarding priorities are subjective, then it ishard to have a rational discussion and come to mutualagreement on the best use of the museum’s resources.Speaking with a unified voice regarding priorities canbe extremely compelling. If the board understands whya given work is the most important thing the museum23

connecting collecting: merrittcould acquire, and why, they will be more likely to findthe funds to make the purchase possible. Similarly, a wellarticulatedcase for why the museum wants this object,and how it will help the museum deliver on its mission,and interpret its chosen themes, can help the museumconvince an individual donor to support its acquisition.Another important decision made in the process ofcollections planning is the strategies the museum willpursue in building its collections. Some museums aggressivelyraise funds to purchase collections, and if thisis to be their approach, it has to be integrated into theirdevelopment and financial planning. Other museumsdon’t have such resources and build their collectionspassively, by accepting donations. But without an effectivefilter, such a strategy is likely to result in the modernequivalent of a cabinet of curiosities – an interesting assemblageof objects that fill the storage room to capacitybut don’t support the thorough exploration of any coherentstories or themes.Participants at the National Collections PlanningColloquium discussed how these strategies might explicitlyinclude collections sharing or niche partitioning– effectively, joint planning by two or more museums.Maritime museums, in particular, are ahead of the curvein recognizing that they cannot each take on huge collections,perhaps because the collections they care for are soinherently unstable and expensive to care for. And theyhave led the way in their plans in identifying what theywill not collect – areas that may be covered by sister institutions.Joint planning might mean a museum can obtainthese collections by loan when they need them, or it maymean they actually partition areas of interpretation, sothey are not addressing stories or issues covered by othermuseums serving the same audiences.And last but not least, because a collections plan isactually going to be implemented in real time and notjust a vision or a wish list, it has to be translated intoconcrete action steps. One of the most important stepsis assessment of needed resources – and not just themoney to purchase collections. A museum might need toassess the available storage space and find out if it needsto be expanded, or if other collections need to be deaccessionedto make room for higher priority material. Anassessment may reveal the need for new conservationfacilities or training, for specialized preparation equipment,or increased security. And, if planning shows thatthese resources cannot be obtained, then the museummay have to circle back and modify its goals regardingthe content of the collections. They are not theoretical,they are real physical object with real needs that have tobe met, and the museum has to think ahead regardingwhether it can meet these obligations.Collections planning in the realmuseumThis process is not without challenges. For one thing, werarely can simply abandon our past. Many museums findthat they have legacy collections from a founder or majordonor that it is politically impossible for them to deaccession.The founder or donor may still be alive, or thepublic may be so enamored of something you own thatthey will never, ever let you get rid of it. It is too deeplyassociated with their memories of your institution andrational thought has nothing to do with it.For another, it is extremely difficult to project futureneeds. If your museum undertakes collections planning,at some point someone on staff, probably a curator, willsay ‘How could we ever turn anything down? It mightbe useful in the future.’ Well yes, it might, but there ispossibility and probability, and with good data and hardthought it is possible to distinguish one from the other.And it is reasonable to assume that a museum, by tryingto project future need is not going to do any worse thanrandom chance (accepting everything that comes in thedoor) and may well do better.The most difficult challenge, however, is cultural.Collections planning calls for profound change in the cultureof how decisions are made in museums, and thereforethe power structure, and status, and everything thatgoes with it. Traditionally, decisions regarding what goesinto the collections were made by curators, and maybe bycommittees of the board. This new model of collectionsplanning is based on truly institutional decision-making,involving all relevant stakeholders. The community the24

connecting collecting: merrittmuseum serves may want a voice in what the museumcollects to serve their interests. Conservators, registrars,and collections managers have expertise in what it willtake to care for these collections. Development and financestaff can assess the potential for gathering thenecessary support to obtain and care for the material.Exhibit designers and educators have an equal stake inthe intellectual framework that shapes not only the collections,but the stories the museum tells through all itsinterpretive activities. It may involve expanding the scopeof planning to include not one, but many institutions, inorder to share resources, distribute costs, and partitionrisk. Only by working together can the staff within museums,and the community of museums as a whole, makewise decisions that serve the public interest.ReferencesMerritt, Elizabeth E, ed (2006), 2006 Museum FinancialInformation. Washington, DC: American Association ofMuseums.Public Trust at Risk: The Heritage Health Index Report on theState of America’s Collections. Washington, DC: HeritagePreservation, 2005.Gardner, James B & Merritt, Elizabeth E (2004),The AAM Guide to Collections Planning. Washington, DC:American Association of Museums.25

connecting collecting: rassoolMuseum and heritage documentationand collecting beyond modernism:Lessons from South Africa for the futureCiraj RassoolHistory Department, University of the Western CapeThis article is concerned with the lives andworlds of museum objects, heritage sites and oralhistory collections in the contradictory setting ofcultural transformation in South Africa, in whichnew heritage frameworks have been created, butwhere old categories and systems of classificationhave proved enduring. While colonial ethnographyreasserts itself in the name of indigenousrecovery, heritage systems of documentation, inscriptionand knowledge formation continue to bemarked by a politics of paternalism and culturalatonement. While these features continue to markthe main frames of national heritage, seeking tomake the nation ‘knowable’, important cases haveemerged where these modernist forms have beencontested and transcended. Chief amongst theseis the District Six Museum, where a transactivemodel of museum as forum has sought to drawthe work of collecting and documentation into theproject of constructing a critical citizenship.In South Africa today, the notions of ‘heritage’ and ‘museum’are used in different ways. ‘Heritage’ and ‘museum’are used firstly as ‘document’, where you have a frameworkof ‘documentary realism’ applied to objects andsites and which is also now being extended to the domainof the intangible, such as oral history collections.Here the main emphases are on inscription, documentation,listing and taxonomy, where objects are seen as havingobjective, fixed and knowable meanings. Once theyhave been placed in taxonomic systems, and conservationplans have been devised, these artefacts, sites andcollections come to be wielded in the service of nationalheritage.Connected to this is the idea of heritage as ‘development’,where fixed meanings of society and the pastare marshalled for institution building. Here as well, newmuseums are being developed to showcase the new nationof South Africa, and to deliver services to the assemblednation as well as to tourist visitors in search ofthe story of South Africa and the miracle of the new nation’sbirth after the ravages of apartheid. This is heritagetransformation seen as the product of central planning,and where expert consultants create instant themed environments(sometimes described as ‘museums’ – suchas the Apartheid Museum) where the story of the nationis revealed and told. Having been forgotten, the peopleare asked to participate in the museum almost as an afterthought,usually to donate their memories in oral historyprojects.We are living through a time when you can actuallysee the logics of this modernism in operation. At FreedomPark, being created on a hill in Pretoria, we can see how26

connecting collecting: rassoolthe new nation seeks to fix verified lists of heroic biographiesinto the national pantheon. All over the country,different projects are geared towards the digitisation ofliberation archives and the collection of oral histories asthe basis of conserving, documenting and recovering anational history. Intangible heritage is being recordedand listed, resulting in their consequent tangibilisation,involving a conflation between archive and repertoire(Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 2006). What is happening here isthat we are seeing a new attempt to give a sense of order,coherence and knowability to society through making inventories,devising conservation plans, creating institutionsand installing processes of knowledge formation.I want to show how colonial ethnography has reasserteditself in the name of indigenous recovery, andhow heritage systems of documentation, inscription andknowledge formation continue to be marked by a politicsof paternalism and cultural atonement. I also wantto introduce some of the approaches to collections inthe District Six Museum in Cape Town, where a transactionmodel of understanding ‘museum’ and ‘heritage’ hasemerged, in which the museum is understood primarilynot as collection but as ‘forum’, where the museum is aspace for the promotion of a critical citizenship.Thirdly, I want to suggest that it might be far morebeneficial to transcend the documentary paradigm byapproaching sites, objects and collections through aconcept of contestation and a struggle over meaning, inwhich we need to understand the complex social lives ofthings in museums. In the District Six Museum, the workof collecting and documentation has been drawn muchmore purposefully into the project of constructing a criticalcitizenship. I want to make an argument for a muchmore nuanced, critical approach to heritage practice thatgoes beyond the technical and the documentary.The cult of Bleek and LloydOver a 14-year period between 1870 and 1884, a set ofresearch encounters took place in Mowbray, Cape Town,between the European philologist Wilhelm Bleek, hissister-in-law, Lucy Lloyd and a group of Khoisan /Xamspeakersfrom the Karoo region. Convicted on charges ofstock theft and other crimes arising out of defensive actsagainst colonial encroachment, the /Xam-speakers hadbeen incarcerated at the Breakwater Prison, where theyhad also been subjects of racial research and anthropometricphotography.Those late nineteenth century encounters and engagements,mediated by the efforts of Lloyd and laterBleek’s daughter, Dorothea, gave rise to a material assemblage,a collection of testimonies, transcripts, translations,traces and artefacts. These took the form of letters,glass photographic plates, numerous notebooksand more than 450 printed pages of Specimens of BushmanFolklore (Bleek & Lloyd 1911, see also Deacon 1996; Hall1996). These materials came to be held across three collectinginstitutions: the National Library of South Africa(then the South African Public Library, where Bleek andlater Lloyd worked as librarians on the Sir George GreyCollection), the Iziko South African Museum and mostimportantly, the Manuscripts and Archives Division ofthe University of Cape Town (UCT) Libraries.The /Xam testimony and folklore recorded by Bleekand Lloyd achieved importance a century later, in the1970s and 1980s when selections thereof were marshalledin the interpretation of rock art in southern Africa. Outof these interpretations a dominant view of the significanceof these records has sought to understand rock artin southern Africa by recourse to theories of shamanism.Much of this work has centred on David Lewis-Williamsand his interpretations, and there are a host of associatedrepresentations in the academy and the field of heritagethat draw upon this work. This dominant perspective isto be found in books published since the 1980s (Lewis-Williams 1981; Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1999) in thework of a major rock art research centre as well as in arange of museums and exhibitions. 11 There are Bleek-Lloyd exhibitions at the Iziko South AfricanMuseum (in the form of an exhibition on rock art, ‘!Qe: The Power ofRock Art’, which opened in December 2003) and at the new Museumvan de Caab at the Solms-Delta estate in Franschhoek, as well as atthe new Origins Centre in Johannesburg, whose first and foundingsection is the South African Museum of Rock Art (SAMORA). Thislast was formed partly out of the work of the Rock Art ResearchInstitute (formerly ‘Unit’) at the University of the Witwatersrand,which was headed by David Lewis-Williams until his retirement a27

connecting collecting: rassoolGenerally following this dominant perspective initiatedby David Lewis-Williams, Janette Deacon has beenone of the main scholars who studied the Bleek-Lloydrecords to understand rock art as the physical signs ofa San spirit world and religious belief. Perhaps Deacon’smost significant contribution has been her efforts toidentify and map the actual locations from which the /Xam speakers came and to which they refer in theirstories. Her work, which was inspired by that of DavidLewis-Williams saw her undertake various fieldtrips tothe Northern Cape. What followed was an archaeologicalstudy of the rock engravings in the area of the ‘Grass’and ‘Flat’ Bushmen which tried to draw connections with/Xam beliefs and customs as contained in the nineteenthcentury records. For Deacon, the Bleek-Lloyd collectionwere records of the /Xam cognitive system which alsorecorded valuable information for understanding ‘suchelements as the metaphors expressed in the rock art ofsouthern Africa and the close bond that existed betweenthese indigenous people and the landscape in which theylived.’ (Deacon 1996: 113; see also Deacon & Dowson1996). 2David Lewis-Williams suggested that Wilhelm Bleekhad been a man before his times for whom Bushmanand European languages were equals. In a similar vein,Janette Deacon argued in 1996 that what had unfoldedin Mowbray had been ‘a remarkable relationship betweentwo families’ who were drawn together in a ‘jointeffort’ to record the language and folklore of the /Xam,the ‘descendents of the indigenous San of the northernCape’. The Bleek-Lloyd records, she suggested had been‘the result of remarkable mutual respect and co-operationbetween interviewers and interviewees’ (Deaconfew years ago. One of the most recent temporary exhibitions focusedon the drawings made by the /Xam at the Bleek/Lloyd householdwas ‘The moon as shoe – drawings of the San’ curated by MiklosSzalay of the Zurich Ethnological Museum and held at the IzikoSouth African National Gallery in 2003. An accompanying book bythe same name was published in Zurich by Scheidegger & Spies in2002.2 Deacon was one of the organisers of the landmark internationalconference on the Bleek-Lloyd collection held at UCT in 1991 fromwhich Voices from the Past was produced.1996: 93-113; Skotnes 1996 and 2001). 3 The Bleek familyof scholars were ‘committed to a cause that must haveseemed esoteric in the extreme to many of their contemporaries’.Without the ‘personal sacrifice’ on the part ofthe two families, ‘we would know virtually nothing of the/Xam and their cognitive system’ (Deacon 1996: 93, 113).The archive was described as the closest thing we had to‘a Bushman voice’ from the nineteenth century (Skotnes1996: 18).Alongside David Lewis-Williams, Janette Deacon’sscholarship has been central to ensuring that shamanistand neuro-psychological interpretations of rock art havebeen combined with understandings of rock art’s maininterpretive archive - the Bleek-Lloyd records - thathave stressed remarkable equality and cultural salvage.This paradigm has come to dominate the field of rock artconservation in South Africa and beyond through theinfluence of the work of the Rock Art Research Institutein Johannesburg (Lewis Williams & Dowson 1989 and1994).Here I want to suggest that these notions of culturalsalvage and remarkable equality have served to create akind of cult out of Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd whosearchive has been understood in a very limited way as asystem of linguistic and cultural documentation andwhich has been mined for a lost, extinct authenticity.These dominant meanings and idealised notions of significancewere incorporated into world heritage when theBleek-Lloyd Collection (UCT & South African Library)was inscribed on the register of UNESCO’s ‘Memory ofthe World’ Programme in 1997. According to the nominationform, Bleek and Lloyd’s notebooks ‘served as a“Rosetta Stone” which has enabled scholars to decipherthe meaning of southern African rock art’ (;

connecting collecting: rassoolsouth_africa/southafr.htm>, both accessed November15th 2006).As the main researcher and thinker behind IzikoSouth African Museum’s rock art exhibition, ‘!Qe: ThePower of Rock Art’, that opened in December 2003,Janette Deacon took her perspectives into the field ofmuseum display. The production of this exhibitionsaw the dominant shamanist and neuropsychologicalparadigm, and the Bleek-Lloyd cult of salvation andremarkable equality being combined with a politics ofconsultation that sought authority in authenticity. Themain voices of authentic indigeneity were N/u-speakingelders from Upington and Witdraai, with whom thelinguist Nigel Crawhall had been working on behalf ofthe South African San Institute (SASI) on projects documentingN/u language, mapping personal and communityhistories and place names, and compiling a‘biodiversity resource history’ (Crawhall 1998). WhileCrawhall’s language research showed enormous potentialfor transcending ethnic paradigms, his participationon the exhibition’s academic committee saw him becomethe deliverer of indigenous participation and authentication.The assembled indigenous in turn would be able toreflect with a sense of gratitude upon the implied chainof salvation and benefaction, beginning with Bleek andLloyd’s documentation and culminating in the museumexhibition itself.The problem with all of this work is that in spite ofits mushrooming in the post-apartheid era and its deepconcern with indigenous heritage, it is remarkable thatalmost nowhere do you find an engagement with theblood and brutality of the Khoisan experience. In addition,despite a growing corpus of scholarship on collections,mediation and the production of knowledge, includingserious postcolonial scholarship on archives inSouth Africa (Hamilton et al 2002), the approach to theBleek-Lloyd records in Deacon’s work, and the Bleek-Lloyd canon more generally, remained couched in thelanguage of recovery and authenticity (see Weintroub2006 for an important recent exception). Nowhere inthe Bleek-Lloyd canon is the archive engaged with fromthe point of view of its mediations, except for the idea ofsalvage.The politics of cultural atonementDeacon’s book, My Heart Stands in the Hill, produced withthe photographer Craig Foster, is the one of the mostrecent renditions of the Bleek-Lloyd canon that reproducesall of its discursive characteristics. Foster had previouslymade the acclaimed film, The Great Dance thatreproduced the idea of the Bushman as hunter-gatherer(Douglas 2001). This book, referred to as the product ofa ‘pilgrimage of a modern archaeologist and film maker’is at the same time hauntingly beautiful and deeply troubling.It draws on Deacon’s knowledge of the landscapebased upon the references in the Bleek-Lloyd archive.The book is an attempt to ‘reunite’ photographic imagesof the /Xam and the /Xam ‘voices’ of the texts with thelandscape they left behind, including the rock art. ForFoster, the book was a means ‘to celebrate the rock artand the people who made it’ (Deacon & Foster 2005: 36and dustcover).In the book, another version of Deacon’s interpretationsof the Bleek-Lloyd archive and her accumulatedknowledge of the /Xam landscape have been combinedwith Foster’s enlarged photographs of the region and itsrock art in all its detail and beauty and archival imagesof the /Xam that have been ‘reunited’ with that landscape.All the elements of the Bleek-Lloyd canon arerestated and re-explored, including detailed discussionson shamanism and trance, and there are explanationsof the neuropsychological approaches of David Lewis-Williams. The photographic images that have been ‘reunited’with the landscape are the well-known Breakwaterand studio photographs of the /Xam.Foster, in using a generator, slide projector, stands,lighting and three cameras, was able to project images ofphotographed /Xam faces on a 35 mm slide film ‘backinto the landscape that they had lived in 150 years previously’.Images of ‘old shamans and hunters’ were superimposedon to trees, waterfalls, grass and hillsides,each with their peculiar textures and visual effects.Importantly, images were also projected onto rock surfacescontaining engravings. For Deacon, what has beenachieved is a layering of ‘history, memory, spiritual experiencesand landscape’. For both, this project was an29

connecting collecting: rassoolact of symbolic return. The photographs were no longer“scientific” photographs of representations of a lost linguisticgroup’, but had been given ‘individuality, colour,texture and a place of their own’ (Deacon & Foster 2005:143-144). Once again, Deacon drew upon Nigel Crawhalland the South African San Institute to engage with N/uspeakers and to get their approval.Although only listed in the bibliography, the inspirationfor this book was no doubt the work of Finnish photographer,Jorma Puranen, Imaginary Homecoming, in whichhe embarked upon a ‘metaphorical return’ of Sami imagesto the land of the Sami. These images were from the 1884Roland Bonapart expedition that were in the collectionof the Musée de L’Homme in Paris. This was achieved inPuranen’s work not by projection, but by reinstallationand reinsertion. Here, anthropological photographs hadbeen rephotographed in positive and negative forms, enlargedon large plexiglass panels, then reinserted into thelandscape, or reproduced on polyester sheets which werethen hung in bushes or wrapped around trees. In a powerfulaccompanying essay to the catalogue, the scholar ofphotography, Elizabeth Edwards, argues that the rephotographingof these installations created an ‘imaginary,metaphorical homecoming’ (and , both accessedApril 17th 2008) (Puranen 1999; Edwards 1999: 43).Puranen’s photographs, Edwards argues, move fromthe archive, the ‘symbolic space of appropriation’ into theland, ‘the symbolic space of belonging’. The living and thedead are brought together in the ‘stylistic re-enactment ofhistoric ways of photographing’. When plexiglass panelsare held by living hands, the ‘boundaries between thepast and the present’ are ‘intentionally blurred’. Puranen‘reuses and juxtaposes’ historical representations of theSami.More broadly, he enables positivist realist notions ofphotography to engage with expressive photography aspart of ‘reflexive visual exploration in the late twentiethcentury’. Puranen’s images ‘form dense networks’ whichallude to ‘the networks of memory and its mapping onto the land’. They destabilise the categories and genresof art, landscape and documentary as they attempt toreposition the ethnographic image. The project works,Edwards argues, because they ‘confront the culturalstage on which the performance of photography wasplayed out’. Far from romantic, ‘cultural atonement’, in‘Imaginary Homecoming’, the photographs ‘confront theviewer with their own history’ and the nature of photographicappropriation becomes an ‘act of translation’(Edwards 1999: 43-76).In contrast, in spite of being inspired by Puranen’swork, Deacon and Foster’s project in South Africa failsto examine the complex visual histories of ethnographyand archive that are related to the /Xam photographs.Instead, Deacon’s project with Foster seems extremelyundertheorised, and is located within a profoundly differentparadigm of liberal paternalism, authenticity andcultural atonement. Any project of rehumanisation ofethnographic images must proceed from a detailed understandingof the history of photography’s violence andthe evolutionist frames through which they were made.The museum as forumAt the well-known District Six Museum in Cape Town,the core of its work may focus on the history of DistrictSix and national experiences of forced removals. But thekey features of the District Six Museum are methodological.Since its inception as a museum of the city of CapeTown, the District Six Museum has been an independent,secular site of engagement and a space of questioningand interrogating South Africans society and its discourses.Far from being a site of museum services, it hasoperated as a hybrid space of research, representationand pedagogy, which has brokered and mediated relationsof knowledge and varied kinds of intellectual andcultural practice between different sites, institutions andsociological domains. Annunciation, conversation anddebate formed the lifeblood of its creative and curatorialprocess and memory politics as former residents inscribedtheir biographies into the materiality of the museumon the memory cloth and the map (Delport 2001:34-38; Rassool 2006: 290). The museum’s relationshipwith community is not just through reference groups orthrough limited attempts at ‘audience development’.30

connecting collecting: rassoolLife history was a key feature of the District SixMuseum’s memory work from the beginning. At first,rows of large-scale portraits of former residents, printedon transparent architectural paper, and hung from thebalconies, gazed down upon visitors on the map. Theseportraits of prominent District Sixers and ordinary residentsseemed to give the exhibition a sense of being protectedby the area’s ancestors. Later these were replacedby enlarged portraits which were created this time fromprints on a delicate but durable trevira fabric, a light andtransparent material. Unlike previous enlarged portraits,these enabled a quality of airiness that did not block theflow of light or interfere with the unity of the museumspace. Enlarged images of political leaders mingled withthose of writers and dancers and those who were seen as‘not as well known’ to create a representation of ‘a broaderlayer of social experience as well as the agency of exresidentsin the development of the museum project andthe collection’ (Fig 2) (Smith & Rassool 2001: 141; DistrictSix Museum Brochure 2000).The scale, placement and arrangement of the enlargedportraits created a presence as visual biographies that acknowledgedthe importance of individual lives in DistrictSix. But their lightness, airiness and movement also suggesteda move away from hard realism, heroic depictionand images as evidence of the truth of lives. This was amedium that lent itself to posing questions about livesrather than celebrating them. These qualities had the effectof enabling life histories to be seen in more complexways than as fixed, given and uncontested, or as mere illustrationsof historical processes and social structure.These questioning modes of display were found elsewherein the museum as opportunities were sought topose questions about how the museum had acquiredimages of people, what the history of these images hadbeen and the ways the museum’s knowledge of people’slife histories had been preceded by prior mediation.These forms of representation were part of a desire to askdeeper questions about lives and biography by openingup issues about production and their mediated, storiednature as well as how these life stories came to be told. Inthe District Six Museum, challenges began to be posedfor museum transformation in exploring methodologiesfor the representation of public pasts that transcendedthe limited recovery frames of social history.An example of this approach was the 1941 AnnFischer image of I.B. Tabata that hung on transparent treviracloth as part of a reconceptualised gallery of ‘translucent’portrait images, found its way on to the Resistancepanel (Thorne 2003). This time, the image was depictedin the makeshift frame in which the museum had acquiredit to indicate that it was based on a photographthat had a biography, and to pay attention in the exhibitionto the process of collecting. More critically, theimage of Tabata had been deliberately placed adjacentto an image of Dora Taylor, as a means of indicating abiographic relationship and to connect the political withthe personal. Tabata and Taylor had been comrades andlovers for 40 years, in a political relationship that was undergroundand a personal relationship that was illegal.And it was Tabata’s relationship with Taylor that was themost formative in his development. In choosing to depictthe intricacies of the personal and the political and to focuson biographical production in the case of Tabata andTaylor, the Museum had gone beyond mere celebrationand documentation as the heritage impulse (Fig 1).Beyond atonementFinally, in calling for attention to the social biography ofthings and to contests of meaning in museums and collections,I want to propose a modest beginning: that wedispense with the ease with which we refer to our workas involving some sort of ‘capturing’ of people, moments,voices and artefacts. We need to think more carefullyabout the terms that we use to for our collecting and heritagepractice. We refer sometimes too easily and unthinkinglyto the importance of ‘capturing’ voices, or about howphotography ‘captures’. We do so almost accidentally andwe don’t realise the extent to which that ‘capturing’ is infact a capturing. Instead we have an opportunity to thinkabout the contested meanings of artefacts, documentsand images, as we find new ways of widening spaces forpublic conversation for social criticism and the enhancementof citizenship. As Jorma Puranen has shown, it isindeed possible to transcend the politics of atonement.31

connecting collecting: rassoolReferencesBleek, WHI & Lloyd, LC (1911), Specimens of Bushman Folklore.London: George Allen.Crawhall, Nigel (1998), ‘Reclaiming Rights, Resources andIdentity: the Power of an Ancient San Language’, in Dladla,Yvonne, ed, Voices, Values and Identities Symposium: Record ofProceedings. Pretoria: South African National Parks.Deacon, Janette (1996), ‘A tale of two families: Wilhelm Bleek,Lucy Lloyd and the /Xam San of the Northern Cape’, inSkotnes, Pippa, ed, Miscast: Negotiating the Presence of theBushmen. Cape Town: UCT Press.Deacon, Janette & Dowson, Thomas A, eds (1996), Voices fromthe Past: /Xam Bushmen and the Bleek and Lloyd Collection.Johannesburg: Wits University Press.Deacon, Janette (1996), ‘Archaeology of the Grass and FlatBushmen’, in Deacon, Janette & Dowson, Thomas A, eds,Voices from the Past: /Xam Bushmen and the Bleek and LloydCollection. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.Deacon, Janette & Foster, Craig (2005), My Heart Stands in theHill. London, Cape Town, Sydney and Auckland: StruikPublishers.Delport, Peggy (2001),’Signposts for Retrieval’, in Rassool, Ciraj& Prosalendis, Sandra, eds, Recalling Community in CapeTown: Creating and Curating the District Six Museum. CapeTown: District Six Museum.District Six Museum (2000), ‘A Guide to the District SixMuseum and the Digging Deeper Exhibition’ in District SixMuseum Brochure. Cape Town.Douglas, Stuart (2001), ‘The Re-Enchantment of the World andthe Threat to Reason: The Great Dance: A Hunter’s Story.’Kronos, Special Issue: Visual History, vol. 27, Nov. 304-19.Edwards, Elizabeth (1999), ‘Anthropological Deconstructions’,in Puranen, Jorma, Imaginary Homecoming. Oulu: Kustantaja.Hall, Martin (1996), ‘The Proximity of Dr Bleek’s Bushman’,in Skotnes, Pippa, ed, Miscast: Negotiating the Presence of theBushmen. Cape Town: UCT Press.Hamilton, Carolyn; Harris, Verne; Taylor, Jane; Pickover,Michelle; Reid, Graeme & Saleh, Razia, eds (2002),Refiguring the Archive. Cape Town: David Philip.Lewis-Williams, J David (1981), Believing and Seeing: symbolicMeanings in Southern San Rock Paintings. London: AcademicPress.Lewis-Williams, J David, ed (2000), Stories that Float from Afar:Ancestral Folklore of the San of Southern Africa. Cape Town:David Philip.Lewis Williams, J David & Dowson, Thomas (1989), Imagesof power: understanding Bushman rock art. Johannesburg:Southern Book Publishers.Lewis Williams, J David & Dowson, Thomas (1994), ContestedImages: diversity in southern African rock art research.Johannesburg: Wits University Press.Puranen, Jorma (1999), Imaginary Homecoming. Oulu: Kustantaja.Rassool, Ciraj (2006), ‘Community museums, memorypolitics and social transformation: histories, possibilitiesand limits’, in Karp, Ivan; Kratz, Corinne A; Szwaja,Lynn & Ybarra-Frausto, Tomás, with Buntinx, Gustavo;Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara & Rassool, Ciraj, eds,Museum Frictions: Global Transformations/ Public Cultures.Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Skotnes, Pippa (1996), ‘Introduction’ in Pippa Skotnes, ed,Miscast: Negotiating the Presence of the Bushmen. Cape Town:UCT Press.Skotnes, Pippa (2001), ‘“Civilised Off the Face of the Earth”:Museum Display and the Silencing of the /Xam’, PoeticsToday, Vol 22 (2), Summer.Smith, Tina & Rassool, Ciraj (2001), ‘History in photographs atthe District Six Museum’, in Rassool, Ciraj & Prosalendis,Sandra, eds, Recalling Community in Cape Town. Cape Town:District Six Museum.Thorne, Jos (2003), ‘The Choreography of Display: ExperientialExhibitions in the Context of Museum Practice andTheory.’ Unpublished M. Phil Thesis, University of CapeTown.Weintroub, Jill (2006), ‘From tin trunk to worldwide memory:the making and re-making of the Bleek-Lloyd archives.’Unpublished M. Phil Mini-thesis, University of Cape Town.Image captionsFig 1. Portraits of I B Tabata & Dora Taylordisplayed in the District Six Museum, c 2006.Photo: Patricia Hayes.Fig 2. District Six Museum interior, c 2000.Photo: Paul Grendon.32

connecting collecting: pedersenCelebrating in the public, private and virtualspace. Contemporary study of the Danes andthe Crown Prince’s Wedding in 2004Lykke L PedersenThe National Museum of DenmarkOver two thousand people participated in aproject where ten cultural institutions collectedand recorded contemporary popular expressionssurrounding the celebration of the wedding of theDanish Crown Prince in the public, private andvirtual space. Our focus was on what ordinarypeople were doing that very day and on what thecelebration meant to them.On 14 May 2004 the Danish Crown Prince Frederikmarried Ms Mary Donaldson, a citizen of Australia.This historic event turned Danish society upside downfor several weeks and possibly months. During that periodnational and international media were continuallyproducing new stories of the wedding as a romantic andnational event showing how a commoner from Australiawas transformed into a modern princess by marrying aprince of one of the world’s oldest monarchies. Mediainterest was overwhelming; it seemed as if everybodywas celebrating. On the very day of the wedding 180 millionpeople watched the event on television. Broadcastcoverage lasted from dusk to dawn and was the largestever television transmission in Denmark. Three hundredand seventy-six million people were watching during thewedding week. In the streets of Copenhagen hundredsof thousand of people gathered. The nation more or lesswent crazy during the wedding celebration. Some evencalled it ‘wedding hysteria’. Denmark was turned upsidedownfor weeks. What was going on?Documenting one day worldwideA number of cultural institutions, with the NationalMuseum at their head, conducted an investigation of themany different ways in which the Danes related to theevent. Eight museums, two archives and two universitydepartments decided to coordinate a research projectdocumenting this day in the public, private and virtualspace. The fieldwork was not at all focused on what theroyal family was doing, but rather on how this rite de passagein the royal family was interpreted by ordinary peopleat various locations in the Danish kingdom, from ArcticGreenland and the Faroe Islands in the North Atlanticto the southern parts of Denmark; and even includingDanes abroad, as far away as Tasmania and Brazil.The starting point was a joint investigation carriedout by a group of researchers, combined with laymen atmany different locations. The fieldwork took place duringa very short space of time – actually only one day– at many places all over the world, connected by electronicmedia, television broadcast and the Internet. Ishall present a very few aspects of the whole project. Thepoint is also to emphasize how the Internet is importantnot only in contemporary society in general, but also toshow that it has great potential as a democratic moderncollecting tool for use by museums.34

connecting collecting: pedersenFocusThe overall focus was to show the meaning of the royalwedding not only in the lives of ordinary people, but alsothat it had a general cultural historic purpose, specificallyhow the role of the monarchy in democratic societies ofEurope is changing. Almost everywhere the role andfunction of the monarch has developed from one of absoluterule towards one that is more symbolic and with aconsultative function. By studying how an anachronistic,and in many ways undemocratic, institution – the monarchy– is well integrated and a vital part of democraticwelfare societies, one has a possibility of studying culturalchanges in modern European life. The royal weddingand other broadcasts of this type can be understood asmodern invented national tradition giving royal familiesand monarchies a new public setting – an electronic ritual.Furthermore, the organizers of such events – the royalcourt – are very conscious of the important role of publicceremonies in public perception of the monarchy.Monarchies today have no political power but continueto wield huge influence as role models of ‘the goodlife’. One might think that the rather banal aspects ofroyal life dominate and that royal figures have becomemerely celebrities as presented in lifestyle and fashionmagazines, but there is more to it than that. At one pointthe monarchy has been transformed into a core symbolof the nation state with a unifying function in theScandinavian societies. Very few institutions have thisunique quality. It is also interesting to observe how peopleat a personal level relate to royal life in many differentways, and how people attempt to connect their own liveswith the royals. Many Danish people chose to be marriedon the very same day as Crown Prince Frederik and MaryDonaldson and to have their own wedding party at thesame hour as the ‘big’ wedding.Perspective (upside-down)The popular experience of the Crown Prince’s weddingwas documented in private, public and virtual space,where everyday routines were set aside. The challengefor the collecting project’s Danish researchers was todocument what ordinary people were actually doing onthat very day through a combination of many differentcollecting methods. Over 2,000 people participated inthe project. The project itself became quite popular andactually became a part of the whole wedding event – amagic moment in May. Through fieldwork (interviews,participant observation, video filming, audiotapes andphotos) the public sphere was documented. Coverage includeddecorated streets and shops all over the Danishkingdom, the choreography of the crowds in the streetsof Copenhagen where the wedding took place, andalso private parties at which people gathered for hoursaround the television. All of this served to create newfestive patterns of celebration with television dinners,champagne, and planned activities. The Internet alsoplayed a very large role, and collecting activities triedto capture these new virtual expressions and possibilitiesto participate. Written and e-mail diaries and photodiaries were collected where people documented theirprivate celebration(s). Another important part of theproject was traditional museum collecting of all kinds ofobjects, ranging from dinner plans and costumes to trashfrom the streets, and not least Internet websites and chatrooms were preserved.In the streetsThe Copenhagen inner city was a central part of publicspace where official and private celebrations took place.At times the celebration merged into new forms, for examplewhen people took photos of themselves kissingin front of the official decorations of the city. The streetscene was typified by activities with carnivalesque features;people dressed up amusingly with things like toydiadems, and both Danish and other national flags weredisplayed creatively. In the contrast to everyday norms itwas permissible to talk to strangers and join in their conversationas long as the subject was the shared, unitingevent of the royal wedding. In this ‘national parlour’ thebig outdoor screens were a unifying element and a different,simultaneous reality. On the city squares one hadthe advantage of being close to the church and the coachroute, while at the same time the media remained closeat hand. One was physically present in the ‘ritual’ space,35

connecting collecting: pedersenbut could also follow the event in close-up on the bigscreen. Unlike the Royal Family and the other guests inthe church, one could also see the tears of Crown PrinceFrederik close up.The police formed a visible part of the urban securityscene and were at the same time visible evidence ofhow the event turned everyday life topsy-turvy: severalpolice cars and officers were decorated with crowns andflags and people were observed addressing the policemenin an informal, playful and teasing way.Celebrating at homeBy means of questionnaires and disposable cameras distributedby researchers to ordinary Danes, celebrationsin private space were documented and described. Therewere many hours of broadcasting – ranging from the traditionalcoverage of the major national television channelsto the alternative channel, Zulu Royal, which interpretedthe wedding in an ironic light. The monolithic TVwedding programmes put all the ordinary programming,such as news reports, aside. The event itself became an‘electronic monument’ in the public’s consumption of anhistorical event – remembered and shared through themedia.Television became a structuring element for the dayand for private celebrations, including the many groupsof (mainly female) friends who planned to meet and enjoythe day together. The feasting in front of the screensranged all the way from elaborated ‘royal gala dinners’to easy takeaway pizzas. In this way people could satisfytheir hunger without having to miss any of the weddingtransmission. Many people told how they were carefullyplanning the day, so they would have absolutely no disturbances!Many Danes planned to take the day off fromwork. One argument for staying at home was that the televisionoffered a better overview of the entire affair – allthe different places where the wedding took place, as wellas offering a better view of the fashionable dresses andclose-ups of the emotional faces of the royal couple thanwould have been possible outside.Internet celebratingThe wedding became the first event in the Danish RoyalFamily that seriously monopolized part of the Internetand set new records for the Danish use of the Net. Therewere many options to choose from: traditional, informativepages with images and text, webcasts of the actualceremony (i e transmissions over the Internet so that theevent could be seen simultaneously on the computer),interactivity, games etc. The Internet portal Jubii set up apage where the users could post their own film clips withgreetings to the bride and groom and congratulate themalong with like-minded well-wishers in a virtual collectivity.In the chat room forum in particular it was clear thatan Internet community was created in connection withthe television transmission and was used alongside it.Early in the project an information and informationgatheringhomepage was established, and it became veryimportant to the entire teamwork, which spanned animmense geographical area. One of the project’s conclusionswas, for example, that this kind of collaborationwhere informative work is combined with informationgathering offers promising perspectives for future contemporarystudies.Some conclusionsThe investigation showed that Danes took anything buta passively consumerist approach to the event. Rather,the royal wedding constituted a framework for creativepopular expression and helped develop both old andnew social collectives. Such a national event offers anopportunity for norms and behaviour in everyday life tobe suspended for a short period. Thus it becomes possibleto be personally involved in rituals and celebrationson a national scale that allow one to put one’s own lifesituation and choices into new perspectives.One important question is: What does such a royalcelebration signify for the ‘ordinary’ participants? It istoo simple to interpret the event as just one big nationalparty. Such modern usage can be either just for fun ordeeply serious, or it can be both at the same time. Withinthe diversity of meaning the event can create both an individualand a collective identity.36

connecting collecting: pedersenThis extraordinary event gives an opportunity toglimpse into the structures of everyday life as new festivepatterns centred around the media, but it also demonstratesthe use of different symbols (flags, hearts andcrowns) in a new context, as well as so-called naturalroutines, i e media use and creation of meaning. It isinteresting to investigate how people themselves definewhat is important in their lives and how they themselvescomment upon the contradictions of contemporary life– distance and involvement at the same time – as a partof a reflexive practice. In that way the Internet offersspace for confessions and testimonials expressing verystrong emotions. Despite its public nature, the Internetcreates private rooms.The mixed use – both of the ceremonial rituals andof the carnival-type displays – can live side by side, notonly in the streets, but also inside the individuals: as oneof our informants (a man in Copenhagen, born 1948)said: ‘First I was just watching for fun, but suddenly whenthe Crown Prince had tears in his eyes, I started cryingmyself. I cried four times and I was very surprised withmyself. I haven’t cried so much since I watched Shoah 20years ago.’ (Shoah is the famous French television documentaryfrom 1985 that interviewed surviving witnessesfrom Auschwitz.)In Australia where the bride was born, 5,000–10,000people celebrated in the streets and watched televisionbroadcasts. A woman in Melbourne, born 1959, wrote:‘The boys fell asleep on the couch and Mum and I criedour eyes out watching lovely Prince Frederik. There wereso many celebrations all over Australia – in Melbournethey had a party in the City Square and lots of peoplewent dressed as princesses and Vikings.’Many people reacted to these rituals not in an analyticalor logical way, but rather irrationally, expressingstrong emotions and contradictions. Many people reflectedin their diaries how important a happy nationalmoment made them feel, in contrast to everyday life withits often overwhelmingly violent news and never-endingwars on television. During the royal wedding week theother headlines in the news dealt with the American AbuGhraib torture scandal in Iraq, as an extremely bizarrecontrast to this fairy tale love story.The source material collected by the research teamis now available in the participating museums for furtherinterpretations and discussions. Comparison of thispublic event with others like it may offer ideas for furtherresearch. In the continuation of this project further interestingassessments and analytical tasks will be carriedout in a Nordic or even European and global context.The Internet is opening up the democratic possibilityof everyone joining in with their stories; many peoplemay choose to contribute as historic witnesses to a publicevent. The popular use of rituals and national symbolsgives a view into modern lives, the contradictionsand breaking down of the boundaries between publicand private spheres and also between local and globalscenes.ReferencesAagedal, Olaf (2001), ’Nasjonal symbolbruk i Skandinavia’, inHovland, Brit Marie & Olaf Aagedal, eds, Nasjonaldagsfeiringi fleirkulturelle demokrati. København: Nordisk Ministerråd(Nord 2001: 4: Forskningsprogrammet Norden og Europa).Aagedal, Olaf (2001), ’Kongelege overgangsriter sommediahendingar’, in Hovland, Brit Marie & OlafAagedal, eds, Nasjonaldagsfeiring i fleirkulturelle demokrati.København: Nordisk Ministerråd (Nord 2001: 4:Forskningsprogrammet Norden og Europa)Adriansen, Inge (2003), Nationale symboler i det danske rige1830–2000. København: Museum Tusculanums Forlag.Aere vaere dronning Ingrids minde. .Anderson, Benedict (1985), Imagined Communities: Reflections onthe Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Billig, Michael (1995), Banal Nationalism. London: Sage.Dokumentation af danskerne og Kronprinsbrylluppet 14 maj2004. .Foreningen af Danske Internet medier. .Hovland, Brit Marie & Olaf Aagedal, eds (2001),Nasjonaldagsfeiring i fleirkulturelle demokrati.København: Nordisk Ministerråd (Nord 2001: 4:Forskningsprogrammet Norden og Europa)Klein, Barbro ed. (1995), Gatan är vår! Ritualer på offentliga platser.Stockholm: Carlsson.Norsk Etnologisk Granskning (2001), Spørreliste nr 189:Kongelig Bryllup.37

connecting collecting: pedersenNordiska Museet (2005), Frågelista nr 234: Våra kungligheter.O’Reilly – What is Web 2.0. .Pedersen, Lykke; Damsholt, Tine & Jensen, CharlotteSH (2007), ’Kleenex og kransekage: Danskerne ogkronprinsbrylluppet den 14 maj 2004.’ NationalmuseetsArbejdsmark 1807-2007, København: Nationalmuseet.Tns gallup, ‘Brylluppet: rekorddag på internettet’ Uge 20, 2004..Turner, Victor, ed, (1982), Celebration: Studies in Festivity andRitual. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.FootnoteThe quotations and photos are all from The World Upside-Down:The Danes and the Royal Wedding 14th of May 2004, EthnologicalResearch no 60, 2004. The National Museum of Denmark. Thefollowing institutions participated in the project:The National Museum of Denmark, Department of ModernDanish History; University of Copenhagen, Section ofEuropean Ethnology; University of The Faroe Islands; TheMuseum of the City of Holbæk; Vejle Museum; Vejle CityArchives; Narsaq Museum and Qaqortoq Museum; The CityMuseum of Copenhagen; Danish Historical Association; www.historie-online.dk.Image captionsFig 1. The wedding took place in the Church of Our Lady, thecathedral of Copenhagen. Many spectators chose to have theadvantage of being close to the church and the coach route, whileat the same time the big public screens were close at hand. Thereone could see Crown Prince Frederik’s tears in close-up, whilethe guests in the cathedral could not.Fig 2. Friends partying in the street with beer, flags and layercake while they wait for the wedding party to pass by.Fig 3. In the world’s northernmost settlement, Siorapaluk, whichis located north of Thule, Greenland, a bride and groom linkedtheir own wedding celebration to that of the Crown Prince andhis bride. The couple is seen standing in the snow in front oftheir house with a giant wedding candle displaying the royalcouple’s monogram.38

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connecting collecting: thomlinsonCollecting the here and now: Contemporarycollecting at the BPMARebecca ThomlinsonThe British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA)Contemporary collecting is relatively new at theBPMA though this paper will give you an overviewof how we have been addressing the issue ofcollecting the postal service today and what typeof material we have been collecting to date.The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) was establishedas a Charitable Trust in 2004 and is the leadingresource for all aspects of British postal history, coveringover 400 years. Before 2004, the BPMA existed as part ofRoyal Mail, the main mail provider in the UK. It is a combinedarchive and museum collection, with the archivebeing based in Central London and the object collectionin accessible storage on the outskirts of London. TheBPMA holds a large number of events, exhibitions andoutreach projects around the country. Its main priorityat present is to find a new location to open a museumpermanently.Background on contemporarycollecting at the BPMABefore November 2006, contemporary material hadbeen collected on an ad-hoc basis and had been opportunitydriven by Post Office closures, chance donations,specific projects, and the occasional purchase. Relianceon donations rather than actively going out and seekingmaterial meant that acquisitions generally tended tobe historic. The public don’t really understand the importanceof collecting contemporary objects and are notkeen on donating objects to museums that they are stillusing. As the BPMA had previously been a departmentof Royal Mail, material was limited to representing RoyalMail Group and not other mail companies. There was nodefined contemporary collecting strategy so we didn’treally know what we were collecting or how we werecollecting it. This resulted in large gaps in the collection.Eventually came the realisation that we needed tostart collecting the contemporary in a more structuredand proactive way, so I was appointed as curator withemphasis on contemporary collecting in November2006.The first thing I did was to develop a policy thatoutlined clear objectives and a structured methodologyfor routinely targeting and collecting contemporarymaterial.Why is it important to collectthe contemporary?It is important to collect contemporary material to buildcollections for future generations so they can have museumsand collections about our time. Living in what isoften termed a ‘throw away’ society, things are not madeto last as long now as they used to be. The danger is that40

connecting collecting: thomlinsonif we don’t collect things now there will be nothing leftof our society for future generations to enjoy. After all, ifno-one had collected contemporary objects in the past,we would have no museums today.Contemporary material builds comparisons betweenthe past and the present. It makes collections more relevantto today’s society and people can better identifywith the contemporary as it provides connectivity totheir lives. It is easier to learn about the past if we cancompare it to the present.Contemporary collecting also revitalises research andprovides greater depth of knowledge for both researchersand staff. It shows how diverse and different our societyis today and encourages different visitor groups to visitmuseums. Contemporary collecting keeps our collectionsdynamic and forward looking and stops them fromstagnating.Many museum bodies and government departmentsare starting to realise the importance of contemporarycollecting. A report by the Department for Culture, Mediaand Sport in 2006 outlines this recent awareness:Collections are the defining resources of museums; museumsneed to continue to collect, especially the varied contemporarymaterial record of the communities they represent. If they donot, the museum’s raw material will decline in relevance. Theywill struggle to represent the world today. And their versionsof our common stories risks becoming static and backwardlooking. (Understanding the Future: Priorities for England’sMuseums 2006).Why is contemporary collectingimportant at the BPMA?Additionally it is important for the BPMA to collect thecontemporary to reflect the major changes happening inthe postal service at present. Royal Mail used to hold themonopoly on mail in the UK for over 350 years, but inJanuary 2006 the mail market was opened up to competitors.There are now 18 licensed mail operators and soit is important to reflect the new competitors in what wecollect so we have a representative sample of postal communicationin general and not just Royal Mail.Contemporary collecting fits in with the BPMA’s keyaims of increasing access and preserving and sustainingthe collection for the future. It also fits our aim of havinga fully representative, national collection of postalhistory.Contemporary objects provide potential for learning,education, research and exhibitions at the same timeas building collections for the new museum. Collecting‘people’ has always been very important at the BPMA;people are what the postal service is about. It is importantto represent the stories of people of our time andengage them in collecting their lives today.How does the BPMA define’contemporary’?The BPMA Contemporary Collecting Policy defines contemporarycollecting asaccumulating material belonging to the present time, that whichreflects the postal service today. This means generally thingsthat are in use until they are superseded by something new ...the BPMA aims to collect a representative sample of all thatis current, new and that reflects changes or innovations in thepostal service.Unlike other museums, the BPMA decided not to put atime boundary on what we term as contemporary.How does the BPMA collectcontemporary material?The BPMA collects the contemporary in a number of differentways. The first way is to make new contacts, notjust with Royal Mail but also with competitor companies,relevant specialist groups, private collectors, other museums,school/community groups, Unions, related federationsand the general public. The new contacts helpus collect contemporary material and keep us up to datewith latest developments. We do this by writing letters tosenior people in Royal Mail and in competitor companiesand meeting up with them if possible.41

connecting collecting: thomlinsonWe also run a regular programme of visits to RoyalMail and Competitor sites (sorting, delivery, sales areas,Post Offices) to look for possible acquisitions and takephotos of the buildings, people and equipment. This isespecially important when these Post Offices are due toclose so we can collect material before it disappears.Oral history is a very important part of contemporarycollecting. We must collect the social aspect of thepostal service by capturing the lives and stories of thosewho work for the postal service. We have an active oralhistory project going on that looks at the many differentaspects of the postal service at work.The BPMA Collections Review fits in with contemporarycollecting. A strategy has been produced for reviewingthe collection, whereby the collection has been splitinto subject groups and a timetable produced for the nextfew years covering all these groups. The reviews identifygaps and duplicates in the collection so that we can targetcontemporary collecting around these strengths andweaknesses. We often involve external experts in thesubject areas to identify types and importance of objectsand help decide what’s missing.The curatorial team works with our Access andLearning Department to develop projects that involvecommunity groups and schools in collecting their livestoday, especially groups that are underrepresented in thecollection.‘Snapshot collecting’ means capturing a ‘snapshot’of the postal service at a given point in time. As well asoral history snapshot projects, the BMPA runs projects toregularly collect a sample of mail from private individualsand businesses around the country during a specifiedperiod of time, especially to reflect changes in thedelivery of mail. We also annually collect a ‘snapshot’ ofPost Office products and services by collecting a sampleof leaflets on display from a specific Post Office on a predetermineddate.The BPMA tries to keep up to date with changes anddevelopments in the industry by regularly reading relevantnational newspapers, business/staff magazines andnewsletters.The BPMA uses the Internet to collect the contemporarythrough discussion sites, chat rooms and photo andvideo websites. This is a good way of showing the socialimpact of postal service, for example there was a lot onchat rooms, Flickr and You-Tube relating to the strikesthat occurred in 2007.Unfortunately museums can’t collect everything dueto size, expense, availability or security issues. However,the BPMA wants to record the things that they can notcollect in some form, so film or photographs are takenof these objects.BPMA staff visit trade shows, fairs, conferences, auctionson a regular basis to purchase new acquisitions andmake new contacts. I recently visited ‘The Mail ShowConference and Exhibition’ and made many new contactsthrough this. We also try to keep an eye on Internetauctions and companies.Case Study 1With the Government’s plans to close 2 500 Post Officesin the country in the next few years, the BPMA were keento capture a snapshot of the situation as it is now. Anoral history project in 2006 visited a rural location alreadyaffected by Post Office closures and with more imminent.Bringsty Common Post Office covers a scatteredcommunity and the BPMA aimed to record how this PostOffice interacts with its community. My colleague JulianStray and a volunteer spent a week there undertaking interviewsand doing location recordings.The interviews included recordings with thePostmistress, Sue Buckley, whose husband built a newbuilding on their land to incorporate the Post Office.They also interviewed all the other staff of this small PostOffice, including two whilst on their delivery rounds, oneby van and one by foot. Rob Jones, who does the walkingduty across the common, covers nine miles a day. Heknows just about every inch of the common, all the shortcuts and where to walk in rougher weather. He was unwillingto be interviewed at first but eventually agreedto let Julian accompany him on his walk. Interviews alsoincluded those with the local users of the Post Office tosee what impact the Post Office has on their lives and toget their views on Post Office closures and see how theywould cope without their local Post Office.42

connecting collecting: thomlinsonThe last group of people that were interviewed were acouple of retired postal workers that still lived in the area.Don Griffiths, now in his 80s, used to be landlord of thelocal pub and postman at the same time. Don used to dothe walking duty now carried out by Rob Jones. Whenhe reached 48 years service as a postman, the RoyalMail told him he had to retire. This sparked off considerablesupport from those on his round and attracted afair amount of media interest. Letters were sent to theQueen and the Prime Minister, a campaign was started.Eventually Royal Mail caved way and fifty years servicewas completed. Don is very proud to have been the postmanon the common for so long. Former Postmistress93 year old Kathleen Roberts also kindly agreed to beinterviewed.Overall the project interviewed eleven people andmade six location recordings. This gave a pretty good‘snap-shot’ of the Bringsty Common Post Office, thepeople that work in it, out of it and some of those thatuse it. It was important to catch this whilst we could, SueBuckley is likely to retire soon and no-one knows thefuture of the Post Office after this.Case Study 2Last year we held a community project with Royal Mailstaff at a sorting office in Central London. This gave theparticipants the opportunity to express their experiencesof their every day work in the postal service. The participants,with help from a professional photographer,took photos of their working life today and produced anon-site exhibition which is now travelling to libraries andcommunity groups around the country. We hope to havesimilar projects in the future.Case Study 3An example of recording what we can not collect in someway is a film we took of a sorting machine that sorts mailinto the correct order for delivery. This is too large tocollect and is currently on trial at the moment aroundthe country and may never be introduced for general use.The machine is only in operation during the night, sotwo BPMA curators visited the London Delivery Officeat 1 o’clock on a September morning to film it in use forhalf an hour. It was very important to capture this whilewe could, in case it disappears from use.What is the BPMA collecting?As I have mentioned, the BPMA collects items that representnot just Royal Mail but also the other 17 mail operatorsin the UK. This includes anything branded with thecompanies’ logo that represents the collection, sortingand delivery of mail.The BPMA believes it is important to collect contemporarytrials and experiments in case they never come into general use. We have many prototypes in the collectionthat wouldn’t have survived otherwise. Examples atpresent are trials with a range of electric delivery vehiclesin an attempt to promote environmentally friendliness,and trials of automated postal services which print postagestamps for letters and parcels and save you queuingat the counter. All these are very advanced technically.The BPMA collects the latest in modern technologiesand anything that is innovative and new. An example ofthis is a computer kit we have just acquired for the collectionthat is used behind Post Office counters.The BPMA also must represent things that are goingout of use before they disappear without a trace. An exampleis the Travelling Post Office (TPO) that ceased torun in 2004. TPOs were railway carriages used to sortmail en route whilst transporting it. As the BPMA alreadyhas a TPO carriage that has just been restored in the collectionthere was no room for another, but two BPMAstaff visited Rotherham in Northern England in 2006to acquire some material from some TPO carriages thatwere awaiting scrapping at a scrap metal dealers. In 2003,Mail Rail, a small underground railway that carried mailbetween sorting offices and the main railway stations inLondon, ceased operating so we are also currently collectingto reflect this.It is also important to reflect the changes and developmentsin the postal industry in what we collect. We dothis by keeping up to date with news of the industry andfinding out information from our new contacts. A topical43

connecting collecting: thomlinsonexample at present is the stopping of Sunday collections.There has been a lot of coverage in press on this and theBPMA are currently collecting to reflect this.The BPMA also collects the topical/political issuesof the contemporary postal service. This type of materialis particularly good for displays and events in thefuture. Examples include material donated recentlyfrom the National Federation of Subpostmasters (NFSP).In 2006 they organised a rally and a petition againstthe Government taking vital business away from PostOffices and their plans to close a large number of PostOffices. The petition presented to the Prime Minister on18th October 2006 was the largest ever presented to theGovernment and consisted of four million signatures. Itwas so big a double decker bus had to be hired to transportthe petition! Protests in Westminster and a lobby ofParliament followed.Another example is of material donated by theCommunication Workers Union (CWU) that was usedduring the national postal strikes that have occurred withRoyal Mail staff between June and October 2007 overpay, pensions and Royal Mail’s modernization plans. Thematerial consisted of posters, leaflets, armbands, T-shirtsand stickers produced by the CWU for use on the picketlines during the strikes. Two staff from the BPMA alsofilmed and made oral history recordings at the picketline of Mount Pleasant on the day of the first strike, 29thJune.It is important to collect the people of the postalservice. Oral history is one way to do this but there are anumber of other ways too, such as through photographs,chat rooms and discussions blogs, staff magazines, diariesand objects associated with them (e g medals).This has given you a very brief overview of what theBPMA has been doing to collect contemporary material.The policy has meant that contemporary material is beingcollected in a more structured way and as a resultcollecting has become wider and far more representativeof the postal service as a whole. Continued monitoringand research means we do not miss out on new developmentsand can tell a fuller story of the postal serviceof our times to future generations. A proactive approachmeans collecting the contemporary is no longer left tochance and hopefully means we are collecting now whatis important for future generations to come.ReferenceUnderstanding the Future: Priorities for England’s Museums(2006). London: Department for Culture, Media andSport.Image captionsFig 1. National Federation of Subpostmasters’ rally, October18th 2006. Photo & copyright: NFSP.Fig 2. BPMA volunteer interviewing postman Don Burrett priorto going out on delivery. Photo: Julian Stray, BPMA.Fig 3. BPMA Community Project with Royal Mail staff,February 2007. Photo: BPMA.Fig 4. Sue Buckley, Postmistress at Bringsty Common PostOffice, hard at work behind her Post Office counter. Photo:Julian Stray, BPMA.Conclusion44

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connecting collecting: jensen & walleNorwegian yesterday, today, tomorrow?A presentation of a project on recentimmigration to NorwayInger Jensen & Thomas Michael WalleThe Norwegian Museum of Cultural HistoryMigration has been a dominant feature ofNorwegian society since the late nineteenth century.Today we are seeing a growing number ofNorwegian museums that in various ways focuson contemporary history and society. This articlewill describe a project on immigration recentlycompleted by the Norwegian Museum of CulturalHistory (Norsk Folkemuseum), and present thecollected material, the temporary exhibitions weoffered the public, and a new website we haveestablished.Second to Ireland, Norway saw the world’s largest emigrationin proportion to population size in the nineteenthcentury. About 900,000 Norwegians emigratedfrom Norway to America in the period 1860–1920. Atthe same time and throughout the twentieth century, migrationfrom the countryside to urban areas increasedas well.During the last decades of the twentieth century themigration pattern in Norway and in the Nordic countrieschanged. There has been a growing population ofimmigrants since the 1970s. The changing Norwegianpopulation is part of an international migration wave.Today about 150 different nationalities live together inNorwegian cities and towns. Approximately 415,000people with immigrant and refugee background are livingin Norway today, constituting almost 9 percent ofthe total population of 4.7 million. This has changedNorwegian society and the perception of what it meansto be Norwegian. Today’s multicultural society demandsa re-evaluation of that concept.Norsk Folkemuseum, when established, was assigneda particular responsibility in the nation-building processby interpreting and presenting national identity and history.Due to the above-mentioned demographic changes,the museum has recently found it necessary to review itswork and objectives as a national institution of culturalhistory, and not least to question and discuss what wedefine as ‘Norwegian’. In the conclusion of this processwe chose to amend our statutes and include recent migrationas an integral part of Norwegian culture whenpresenting Norwegian society. The lifestyle of differentgroups within the immigrant population should not, inour view, be regarded as extraordinary or uncommon,but as varieties of that which is defined as Norwegian.Accordingly, our museum and our collections must focuson and reflect all the ethnic groups and cultures thatconstitute our nation today.Documenting immigrantexperiences – the projectThe emphasis on what we define as ‘Norwegian’ is importantfor our understanding of Norway’s changing society.46

connecting collecting: jensen & walleBy working out a new definition, the focus is placed ona broadly defined national community rather than on anexclusively defined ‘Us’ that opposes the ethnic ‘Other’,thus the title of our project: Norsk i går, i dag, i morgen?Norwegian yesterday, today, tomorrow?) The questionmark in the title is important. It encourages thought andreflection.Since the late 1960s, when the first major waves ofimmigrants with a non-western background came toNorway, public and private research institutes havelooked into what has been named a multicultural society.Much of this research has primarily focused on problemsand defects, and they often nourish the mass media’sunilateral emphasis on the negative consequencesof a culturally diverse society.Research on the history of migration to Norway revealsthat the official archives have collected and preservedonly the official story of immigration (Kjeldstadli2003). The archives document how the authoritiesviewed the non-western immigrants and what measureswere taken as a consequence of the early encounters, butno information about the immigrants’ own experienceswere recorded. We have also seen that public and privateresearch institutes lack the in-house infrastructureto administer qualitative research material, as they donot have the archival routines of museums, libraries andpublic archives.In 2002 Norsk Folkemuseum and InternasjonaltKultursenter og Museum (IKM) commenced a largedocumentation project with the ambition to incorporatecontemporary society’s cultural diversity in the museums’regular undertakings. The project was based on theperception that everybody has a right to the nation’shistory. It is the first major project to document the wayimmigrants live in their new homeland, their thoughtsand their experiences. The methods we chose to use wereinterviews and participant observation.The project’s main objectives have been:• To document real-life experiences withinNorwegian contemporary multicultural society.• To establish and build a collection and archivesconsisting of various sources that will shed lighton recent migration to Norway. The core of thesearchives consists of immigrants’ personal life stories.• To encourage the participation of immigrants asproject assistants, interviewers and informants.• To interpret the research material in terms of thevarious aspects of contemporary immigration.• To examine and challenge ‘Norwegian’ as a concept.We used the following means and methods:• Life story interviews• Field visits to countries of origin• Photographs• Exhibitions• Publications• SeminarsThe catch phrase ‘Right to history’ was a significant motivationfor this project. The possibility to have one’s ownpersonal history preserved for the future was an importantelement in the process. It provides minority groupswith a sense of political recognition and a possibility toconfirm that they are part of contemporary Norwegiansociety. An additional aspect is the possibility for insightand understanding it offers both to our society and futuregenerations about what it was like to come to Norwayand establish a new life as labour migrant or refugee.The project work commenced by focusing on threedifferent groups of immigrants: Pakistani and Turkishlabour migrants, and Bosnian refugees. Granted, sucha project does require thorough knowledge about thecultural and geographical background of the people targetedfor research, we preferred to start with a rather narrowerfocus than a broad review of the vast variety ofethnic groups in contemporary Norway. The latter willhave to be addressed in subsequent projects, which willalso benefit from the experience gained during the initialproject.The project went through several phases, mainly conductinginterviews within one immigrant community ata time, and thus building on the experiences made in theprevious phases. We chose male migrant labourers, who47

connecting collecting: jensen & wallecame to Norway from Pakistan in the 1970s, and theirwives and children, as the first group to be interviewed.The Norwegian Pakistani population is the largest nonwesternimmigrant group in Norway, making it an obviouschoice for a project of this kind. Secondly, the menthat came in the 1960s and 1970s are beginning to growold. We needed to record their stories before it was toolate. Turkish people constitute another large group thatcame to work in Norway in the 1970s, and for the samereason as mentioned above, we saw an urgent need todocument the life stories of an ageing first generation.Contact had also been established between museum staffand the Turkish community before the project, thus facilitatingthe process of recruiting people for interviewing.As people migrate for various reasons, we also wanted tointerview refugees and chose Bosnian refugees as a thirdgroup. While this group came to Norway much later,they reflect the changing pattern of migration to Norwayafter restrictions on non-refugee immigration were introducedfrom the mid-1970s onwards.We have realised that in order to understand whatit is like to be an immigrant, it is necessary not only tounderstand how people experience life in Norway, butalso understand what life was and is like in their countryof origin. It is important not only to get a selection ofstories from various ethnic groups, but also to secure arange of material concerning the individual reasons forbreaking away and travelling to Norway. The motivatingforces behind migration will also affect how you experienceyour encounter with Norwegian society and howyou behave accordingly. While the recorded life storiescentre very much on the early phases of life and thus arerich in information about people’s countries of origin, wealso found it imperative to visit these places.The research materialInterviewsThe purpose of a life story interview is to cover the interviewee’slife span from childhood to the present. The informantstell about their childhood in their native countries,the experience of breaking up and settling downsomewhere new and very different. They relate howthey cope with a new language, the upbringing of theirchildren, with matters such as education, religion andfamily, and negotiate between different cultural values.Interviewing as a method is time-consuming, as muchstaff is needed and the processing of these interviews forarchive purposes also takes time. We still find it, however,the best method for our work, and the interviews willalso be an excellent source for future researchers.Private photosPrivate photos enlighten and reinforce the informants’life stories and are also important memory-keys to beused during interviews. They are valuable sources inunderstanding an individual’s personal life at differenttimes and places, and as illustrations of the past. Muchenergy and time were used to select, duplicate and administerthe acquisition of this valuable material.Field observationFor each interview, a small contextual report was writtenas a guide for future use. Some interviews were supplementedwith pictures taken by the museum’s in-housephotographer. In addition, the field trips to the countryof origin were documented by long reports, by diaries,and an abundance of photographic material.So how did we approach the various ethnic groups?For the interviews of people of Pakistani descent, an earlyimmigrant from Pakistan was engaged to function asa ‘door opener’ and as an interviewer alongside the museum’scurators. He had a wide range of acquaintances,but being a Pakistani man, his circle of female acquaintanceswas more limited. Furthermore, we realised thatthe people we interviewed came from the door opener’spersonal network, thus reducing the potential for variationthat could otherwise have been achieved.Partly due to this experience, and inspired by otherprojects on oral history, we chose another method for theinterviews within the Turkish and Bosnian ethnic groups.People recruited by the curators alongside voluntary amateurswere trained in personal one-to-one interviewingand in private photo collecting during a three-day48

connecting collecting: jensen & walleseminar. Thus they all became door openers in differentcommunities. The work they carried out was supervisedand surveyed by the museum curators. This approachopened up for new possibilities, but also presented uswith new methodological challenges.In addition to the above-mentioned material, otherprojects emerged from this process, giving valuable supplementsto the varied collection that has been initiatedthrough the research.Children’s own documentationAs a means to understanding children’s experiences, weinvited 500 schoolchildren to document their daily lifeduring a given week by asking them to take pictures andcomment on them. This material represents an exampleof contemporary cultural diversity in Norway, as it wasnot limited to the three ethnic communities originallychosen for documentation.AutobiographiesWe have also explored the method of having people writetheir autobiographies. As with children’s own documentation,this part of the project was not restricted to selectedethnic minorities, but was aimed at the vast groupof people who saw themselves as part of the immigrantpopulation in Norway. Invitations were sent out nationwideand resulted in valuable material shedding lightboth on everyday practises and on people’s thoughtsand reflections. This method allowed people to decidethemselves what to emphasize.Communicating our researchDuring the process we found it important to share ourknowledge and experience through exhibitions aboutthe immigrants’ encounter with Norwegian society.Equally important to us was to show how changes in thepopulation have altered everyday life in Norway. Onlyin this way can we as a museum contribute to buildingunderstanding and motivating further participation insubsequent projects.The project to date has resulted in 200 interviews,approximately 4,000 photos, 28 video films, a number ofautobiographies, and more than 12,000 photos taken byschoolchildren in Oslo documenting their everyday life.Every part of this material has been included in the museum’sdatabase system PRIMUS, and is available to thepublic and to researchers with the necessary restrictionsrelated to the Norwegian Personal Data Regulations. Wehave put together more than ten exhibitions, publishedtwo books, one article and several exhibition catalogues.Descriptions of the methodology and the material areavailable in two separate publications (Boe, Gaukstad &Sandrup 2005; Boe & Gaukstad 2006).Through this migration project, Norwegian museumshave established competence in an increasingly importantfield within the culture sector, a field highlightedby the Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs declaring2008 as the Year of Cultural Diversity. The museums’staff has communicated the findings and the experiencesthey have made to a wide audience through seminars andpublications and will continue to do so.Furthermore, in order to open up the new archiveswe are building, and to share our experiences with otherresearchers and present the exhibitions, we have also establisheda website called www.nyenordmenn.no (NewNorwegians). This web site will contain the results of thecompleted project, and serve as a resource for the publicand for future projects led by the two host museumsand other institutions. A recently established Networkfor Minorities and Cultural Diversity has members fromsmaller and larger museums throughout Norway, andmay form a pool from which relevant activities can beselected as part of the website presentation.The way aheadAfter four years of establishing and building these archivesand collecting life stories, we are reconsideringour methods and discussing how to proceed. We certainlywill continue documenting immigrant experiences. Wewill go on collecting life stories. We will also collect informationfocusing on other relevant subjects.One important result of growing immigration is thatsociety changes and not merely at the receiving end inour country. Due to migration, emigrant countries also49

connecting collecting: jensen & wallechange. We find it important to document and get a betterunderstanding of how migration affects both sendingand receiving countries as well as their respectivepopulations. We are therefore currently planning to dofieldwork among Pakistanis living in Norway and followup their relatives in Pakistan. This follow-up project willbe run in cooperation between Norsk Folkemuseum andLok Virsa in Islamabad, Pakistan.There are strong connections between the Pakistanisliving in Norway and their families in their country oforigin, but we also register that bonds are changing.Thus we want to study the symbolic and emotional impactof transnational links in both Pakistan and Norway.Important aspects of this research will be:• Continuity and change in gender patterns• Relations between generations, which may be transnationallydispersed or reside within the same localityWe wish to conduct the project as joint fieldwork in bothNorway and Pakistan, following kin networks across theborders. The team will consist of researchers and traineesboth from Norway and Pakistan, including both womenand men.Life story interviews and documentation of people’shomes and domestic interiors through observations,descriptions and collection of key objects will be ourchosen methods. Not only do we hope to obtain valuableinformation and further increase our knowledgewithin this field, we also hope to gain experience fromthe collaboration with Lok Virsa in working on a bilateralproject.We will continue to train interviewers, in the mannerthat was developed during the above-mentioned projectperiod. We will train personnel of immigrant background,both first- and second-generation immigrants, by offeringtraining courses in interview techniques. To improvethese interviews, we plan to spread the seminars overseveral days. The introduction course will be followed upby courses where we comment on the interviews held,before they conduct follow-up interviews. Our aim is tobuild competence within designated groups, and subsequentlyengage them in future projects. Considering thechanging interests of museums and in culture politics, itis important to have competent personnel available fordifferent projects. On a longer time scale, this will alsoimprove the possibilities to recruit people with minoritybackgrounds for regular positions in museums.During the initial project described above, we sawthat it was difficult to collect objects to be included in themuseum’s collection. There were various reasons for this,but partly because the initial project emphasised immaterialculture when obtaining information as a basis forfuture analysis. A second impediment was deciding whatkind of objects to select and collect, and whether suitableobjects were available. During the upcoming project wewill take measures to enable the collection of objects, byfocusing on key objects that are ascribed symbolic importanceby the people being interviewed.This will be a continuing focus on similar futureprojects, and on systematic documentation of the materialrealities of people’s lives through photography andfilm, an approach used by both Norsk Folkemuseum andIKM. There are also plans for both indoor and outdoorexhibitions.While the project Norsk i går, i dag, i morgen? originatedfrom the governmental call to include new groupsof people in the undertakings of culture institutions andacknowledge the emergence of a multicultural society(NOU 1996:7), demographic developments during thelast decade have resulted in a stronger emphasis on culturaldiversity as a whole. Based on this, we chose to redefineNorsk Folkemuseum as a multicultural museum.Rather than merely focusing on immigrant and ethnicminorities as particular segments of society in oppositionto a ‘general’ Norwegian population, which tends toemphasise discrete divisions between relatively homogeneousgroups, we should now consider contemporarysociety as a meeting place between individuals. Theseindividuals may differ along a number of variables, suchas gender, ethnicity, class, age etc, but will also share experiencesand values. Cultural diversity at the museumthus needs to have an intersectional perspective on contemporarysociety.A further challenge will be to include cultural diversityin all aspects of the museum’s activities, and not onlyregard multicultural society as a theme for the museum’s50

connecting collecting: jensen & walleexhibitions, but also keep a critical eye on how and towhat extent our public perceive the cultural diversitywe present. While an important task for the museum inthe future will be to portray cultural diversity as a set ofmeetings, there is no doubt that we also need to regardthe museum in itself as such a meeting place. As a nationbuildinginstitution assigned a particular responsibility inorder to interpret national identity and national history,we are in a unique position to draw up new directions forsocial interaction in our constantly changing society.ReferencesBoe, Liv Hilde; Gaukstad, Kristin & Sandrup, Therese (2005),Min stemme – vår historie. Dokumentasjon av det flerkulturelleNorge. ABM-skrift nr. 19, Oslo: ABM-utvikling.Boe, Liv Hilde & Gaukstad, Kristin (2006), Hånd i hånd.Oppsummering og egenevaluering av dokumentasjonsprosjektet:Norsk i går – i dag – i morgen? Oslo: Norsk Folkemuseum.Kjeldstadli, Knut, ed (2003), Norsk innvandringshistorie. Oslo:Pax forlag.Mangfald, minne, møtestad. Oslo (NOU 1996:7).51

connecting collecting: fredriksenYouth across the borderChristine FredriksenBohuslän Museum, VästarvetYoung people, identity and border-related issues– during the last few years this has been the focusof the ethnological studies at Bohuslän Museum.The museum has developed collaboration withschools, youth associations and Nordic organizations.These projects have mainly been based onthe involvement and interest of the young peoplethemselves. In these studies Bohuslän Museumhas collected an interesting body of contemporarymaterial in a Nordic and international borderlandperspective.Bohuslän is a Swedish borderland county that has frequentcontacts with Norway. Traditionally there has beengreat mobility in this region. Over the years the Swedish–Norwegian border has been defined in different ways.Mobility and exchange in this area is thus an interestingfield for research. A border region also gives the peopleliving there particular opportunities.Historical studies show how people crossed the borderfrom the Swedish counties of Bohuslän and Dalslandto find work in the south of Norway, a densely industrializedarea, with brick making and textile industries.This is a well-studied example of late-nineteenth- andtwentieth-century border mobility (Norheim 2004).During the Second World War the border was closed andthe traditional local contacts were broken. Later, duringthe 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s, the changes in society withincreasing trade implied new possibilities in the region.The close vicinity of the border and the differences betweenthe countries contributed to economic growth inthe area (Fredriksen 1999; Gustavsson 2006). The borderhas also formed a cultural and social marker up till ourtimes. One example to be mentioned, in the contemporaryhistory of groups moving over the border to improvetheir circumstances, is the minority group the travellers(Andersson & Jonsson 2007).Conditions in the border regions have changed overthe last thirty years, and the significance of the Nordiccommunity now has a stronger meaning. Politicians ondifferent levels have been working to minimize legal andadministrative impediments. In 1977 the Nordic Councilof Ministers decided on regulations to make it easier forthe local authorities on both sides of the border to worktogether. This was the starting point for the exchanges wesee today in these regions. Gränskommittén, an inter-regionalorganization, was founded in the 1980s in the regionsof Bohuslän in Sweden and the Norwegian countyof Østfold, bordering to the south on Bohuslän. The purposewas to promote cooperation by the local authoritiesover the border. Since the 1990s the cultural and heritagework in the Swedish-Norwegian border regions hasalso been supported by funds from the European Union(Interregsekretariat 2007).52

connecting collecting: fredriksenYouth and globalizationOne group, which is characterized by considerable mobilityand interest in international matters is Nordicyoung people. The world is changing and foreign countriesare coming closer to us through the Internet andother media. With increased globalization, we focus todayon other issues than previously. Young people aresocially and culturally flexible, and many of them wantto make long-distance journeys. Exploring new ‘worlds’and being geographically mobile becomes part of theirself-image. What the young people do in their sparetime also makes up an important part of their identity.To be able to spend time with things they are interestedin and also to find places and arenas where they canexpress their identity is essential (Forsnäs 1994; Mörck1998).Considering the increasing globalization, we atBohuslän Museum and the heritage managementVästarvet are interested in how the presence of borders isreflected in a Nordic perspective. We also want to studythe attitudes of a younger generation towards questionsconcerning the border regions and mobility. Duringthe last few years the ethnological studies of BohuslänMuseum, have focused on youth and young people’sculture. Several studies have been carried out on themesconcerning young people: identity and mobility, inter-Nordic contacts and international exchange. A considerableand interesting body of material has been collectedon young people’s culture and on Scandinavian borders.The projects have been carried out in close collaborationwith schools and youth associations, they are mainlybased on the young people’s own interest and involvement.Two projects can be mentioned.Swedish young peopleworking in NorwayA relatively new occurrence in the region in question isyoung Swedes travelling to Norway to work and be partof an expansive Norwegian labour market. This study isabout young people on the point of entering adult life.Because of the difficulty of finding work in Sweden, theirfirst proper job and the first place of their own to live maybe in Oslo or in other Norwegian counties.Approximately 10,000 Swedish citizens under theage of 30 live in Norway. Two thirds of them are under25 (Andersson & Jonsson 2007). According to statisticsfrom 2001 there were 28,000 Swedes earning a salary inNorway. This number does not include those who areemployed in Swedish companies and working in Norwayon contract (Nordisk pendlingskarta 2005). These contractingcompanies are common in western Sweden, particularlyin the building and engineering business. Thereis a great demand for labour in the developing borderregions and in Norway in general. To recruit Swedes forthe Norwegian labour market, Norwegian employmentoffices have opened in the west of Sweden.On the Internet there are also a lot of sites with practicaladvice about working in Norway and the advantagesof applying for work in Norway. Several of these areaimed directly at young people. There are titles like ‘Findyour dream job in Norway’. They present practical advicesuch as ‘Things to remember’ and ‘Money saving advice’and instructions such as:Bring as much food as you can from Sweden, particularlymeat. You can keep the meat frozen in a cool-bag during thejourney. Also bring beer, spirits, cigarettes and tobacco, asthey certainly are not very cheap in Norway. Cook a goodmeal every evening, enough for lunch the next day. If you eatproperly you can manage more overtime work. Make sure youget as much overtime as you can. Show willingness so youremployers understand that you do everything to earn yourNorwegian money. (www.ressidan.com/norge/)In the study Swedish Young People Working in Norway,we have been interested in the conscious decisions theyoung people make; how they build their identity andself-image during their time abroad. What new experienceshave they gained by crossing borders? How dothey view their own mobility? What are their expectationsof the big city of Oslo? The conditions of the timeabroad model the young people’s lifestyle and their contactsin the new country. They live close to Sweden, butstill the conditions and expectations are different. Theywork in restaurants, shops and storehouses and are com-53

connecting collecting: fredriksenparatively well paid. They change jobs often and they areexpected to do a lot of overtime work. To start with, thework in Norway is seen as temporary, but later this viewchanges.These young Swedes have a flourishing social life andspend most of their spare time with friends. Mostly theykeep company with other young Swedes. To be able toafford living in central Oslo they share apartments withfriends and others in the same situation. Living collectively,they share a sense of togetherness with theirflatmates. Quite often though, they move around andchange apartment. The opportunity to find work and aplace to stay greatly depends on mobile telephones anddigital communication; websites and sending text messagesare important ways of keeping in touch and findinginformation. Tips from friends about a better-paid jobor good lodgings are invaluable. Through time the cityof Oslo, with all its amusements and activities, becomestheir home. Nevertheless many of them wonder aboutthe future; where will they settle down and make a living?Do they feel Swedish or do they feel Norwegian?(Andersson & Jonsson 2007).The Nordic Sailing RaceAnother ethnological youth study concerns sailing andNordic maritime culture. The project is run in collaborationbetween Bohuslän Museum and the Museum ofNatural History in Gothenburg. This study has alreadyshown an exciting potential. Every summer since 1990,races have been organized for traditional sailing shipsfrom the whole of Scandinavia. The course of the raceis between a Swedish, a Danish and a Norwegian port.The crews of the sailing ships are mainly young people.They are given a chance to learn how to sail and navigate,and also to assimilate older coastal traditions. Atthe same time they get together with other persons interestedin sailing from the whole of Scandinavia. Thesailing races are characterized by hard work and a strongsense of community and commitment. In this project wewant to study the processes that determine the identitiesof the young people and their attitudes towards contactsbetween the countries. We are also interested in thesignificance of the maritime culture; and how the youngpeople value the sea as a natural resource and as a way toexperience nature.During the documentation of The Nordic Sailing Racein the summer of 2007 each crew was to write a diary.A photographic competition was also arranged. Thethemes were ‘the most dramatic moment’ and ‘the bestnature picture’. The idea was to capture the impressionsand memorable moments of the journey. In connectionwith the photographic competition and the writing of thediaries there was plenty of discussion among the participantsabout which material should be a part of the documentation,how it should be done and what should becollected by the museum.In the diaries the young people have written abouttheir impressions and experiences of the sea and thesailing and about their appreciation of the awe-inspiringnature:The sea is freedom, the feeling of sailing wherever you want to,happiness...Sailing for me is being closer to nature and seeing new places.My best memory was one late evening when we were on thenight watch. It was calm, the sun was setting, the air waswarm and there were newly baked scones on the after-deck.We were fishing for mackerel, taking things easy and listeningto wonderful music; a memory never to be forgotten.Challenges and new friends were other ingredients of thesailing tours:Sailing at night was very dramatic with strong winds. Theseasickness was unbelievably troublesome, but afterwards itwas cool to have managed it.Sailing for me means having fun and meeting new people fromother places. The sense of community onboard is hard to findanywhere else...Being young in the society of today, a major issue is to createan identity and to find out who you are (Henriksson1991; Ring 2007). In this study we are interested in whatimpact the encounters with nature and sailing have hadon the minds of the young people. During the weeks ofsailing, close acquaintances developed between the crewonboard the ships, often lasting for many years. The in-54

connecting collecting: fredriksenternational exchange in the sailing race gives another dimensionto the activities, in which meeting friends fromthe other Nordic countries is the most appreciated part.Border-related projects andcooperation with the communityAt the transition between adolescence and adult life, newexperiences are made and new ideals are formed. WhenI initiated these projects about young people and theirculture I was interested in what it means to be young today.It was the young people living in the border regions,or those who for different reasons have a relationship toa borderland, that caught my interest. What experiencesdo they have and how can the lifestyle of young peoplebe seen in a Nordic perspective?Both projects mentioned above are pilot studies; thework is not concluded and will be continued. The workof documentation has involved gathering informationin other Nordic countries together with youth organizationsand schools. The collaboration with these has beenimportant and instructive. The stories of the young peoplehave constituted a great part of the documentation. Insome of the projects carried out by Bohuslän Museum,the participants themselves have been able to base theirschoolwork in the collected material. They have been ableto work with the oral and photographic material abouthistorical and contemporary conditions in the borderregion. It has been interesting to learn about their ideasand views on issues concerning this topic (Fredriksen &Norheim 2006).Questions that are not unimportant in this contextare: what advantages are there in a project working overthe border? How can the production of knowledge inmuseums be reinforced by international exchange? Aconclusion that can be drawn from the border projectsalready carried out is one of development of knowledge.An essential part of the research on identity and borderrelatedissues has been discussions on these themes froman international and interdisciplinary perspective. In thecooperation over the border with other institutions themethodological work with documentation and collectionis developed. The various experiences of the participantsand colleagues from museums and other institutionsabroad generate new models of collaboration andnew ways of planning the collections. New methods needto be developed in the cooperation with the community,to involve the members of the community in the work.New aspects of local themes can also be seen with aninternational perspective in the research. Another consequenceof working with an international project is thatit creates an incentive to communicate the results – toshow the public the outcome in the form of exhibitionsand publications.Regional museums as well as town museums all worktowards their own goals, usually with a local or a regionalperspective. The development and history of their ownlocal community is a major issue. With this in view, wealso need to take a more global responsibility in collectingand documenting our contemporary society. Whichglobal contexts and questions of today are important torecord? Which significant artefacts and which narrativesare interesting to collect in an international perspective?Bohuslän Museum will hopefully in coming years beable to carry on the international collaboration in ethnologicalresearch. We particularly want to study and gatherinformation about young people in a Nordic and internationalperspective. It is also a good way to establishcontact over the border with schools and youth associations.In addition it is inspiring to work together acrossthe border. We would therefore like to invite other museumsof cultural history from different countries to futurecooperation with us on these themes.Västarvet is the body responsible for heritage management inthe region of Västra Götaland. Bohuslän Museum in Uddevallaand the Museum of Natural History in Gothenburg is part ofVästarvet.55

connecting collecting: fredriksenFootnoteThe research in ‘Swedish Young People Working inNorway’ and ‘Youth in the Borderland’ has been fundedby EU Interreg IIIA Sweden Norway, Gränslöst samarbeteand Inre Skandinavia, and the Nordic Council ofMinisters.ReferencesAndersson, Bodil & Jonsson, Lisa (2007), Mobilitet igränsregionen: To etnologiske studier om identitet og historie igrenseområdet. Uddevalla: Bohusläns museum.Forsnäs, Johan; Boëthius, Ulf; Forsman, Michael; Ganetz,Hillevi & Reimer, Bo (1994), Ungdomskultur i Sverige.Stockholm/Stehag: B. Östlings bokförl. Symposion.Fredriksen, Christine (1999), ’Handel i gränsbygd. ErlandJohannessons i Vassbotten’, in Danielsson, Rolf &Gustavsson, Anders, eds, Gränsmöten. Kulturhistorisk antologiför Bohuslän, Dalsland och Østfold. Strömstad: StrömstadsMuseum.Fredriksen, Christine & Norheim, Svein, eds, (2006), Pågränsen. Svenske og norske ungdommer om identitet og tillhørighet.Uddevalla: Bohusläns museum.Fredriksen, Christine & Sjöberg, Annika (2005), ’Ungdom igränsbygd’, in Overland, Viveka, ed, Bohuslän i världen.Uddevalla: Bohusläns hembygdsförbund och Bohuslänsmuseum (Bohuslän: Årsbok 2005).Gustavsson, Anders (2004), ’Bohuslän gränsland mot Norge– ett kulturmötesperspektiv’, in Overland, Viveka, ed,Gränsland. Uddevalla: Bohusläns hembygdsförbund ochBohusläns museum (Bohuslän: Årsbok 2004).Henriksson, Benny (1991), Att skapa sin ungdom. Stockholm:Glacio.Interregsekretariat, Vänersborg (Bo Hamrå). ConversationSeptember 10th, 2007.Mörck, Magnus (1998), Spel på ytan. En bok om livsstilar.Göteborg: Etnologiska institutionen, GöteborgsUniversitet.Nordisk pendlingskarta – Huvudrapport. TemaNord 2005: 518.Nordisk Ministerråd, Copenhagen.Norheim, Svein (2004), ’Industri og handel over grensa’, inOverland, Viveka, ed, Gränsland. Uddevalla: Bohuslänshembygdsförbund och Bohusläns museum (Bohuslän:Årsbok 2004).Ring, Magnus (2007), Social rörelse: Begreppsbildningen kring ettmångtydigt fenomen. Lund: Sociologiska institutionen, Lundsuniversitet.Ressidan: Jobba i Norge, ,accessed February 23rd, 2007.Image captionsFig 1. The Dramatic Sailing Race - The second-prize winner ofthe photographic competition. The race starts off the island ofGullholmen on the Bohuslän coast and they finish at Tønsbergon the east side of Oslo Fjord in Norway. Photo: PeterLjunggren, Uddevalla, 2007.Fig 2. The Oslo express coach is a quick and cheap way oftravelling from Bohuslän in Sweden to Oslo in Norway. Photo:Sigfrid Carlsson, Bohuslän Museum 2007.Fig 3. A show at Fredrikshald’s theatre in Halden, Norway2005. The project ‘Youth in a borderland community’ wascarried out by Bohusläns Museum together with several otherSwedish and Norwegian folk high schools, museums andassociations in the region. Photo: Jan Palmblad, photo ed: MatsJacobsson.56

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connecting collecting: littleContemporary collecting at Tyne andWear Museums: An overview focusing onoutreach workKylea LittleTyne and Wear MuseumsThis paper will provide an overview of the curatorialand outreach methodologies of contemporarycollecting employed by the Keeper of ContemporaryCollecting (KCC) at Tyne and Wear Museums(TWM). It will conclude with two questions;what is the key to successful community collectingprojects and what issues are involved in the futureof contemporary collecting at TWM.TWM is a federation of eleven museums and galleriesin the North East of England. It is the largest regionalmuseums service in England.The post of the KCC was created in 2005 with the aimto strategically and actively collect contemporary material,particularly from diverse groups who have not traditionallybeen represented in the museums’ collections.To date the KCC has worked with Lesbian, Bi-sexual,Gay and Transsexual groups, members of the disabledcommunity and people from black and minority ethnicgroups. The post is funded by the North East RegionalMuseums Hub (NERMH) 1The KCC works between the History team and theOutreach team at TWM using numerous methodologiesfor collecting contemporary material, depending onwhat or who we want to represent and how much timeand resources we have.Methodologies– the curatorial approachOne approach to collecting led by the KCC, involveslooking at local newspapers and statistics to identify significantevents or trends in the region and this has ledto collecting various objects. We have collected materialfrom the local rugby club (Newcastle Falcons) andfrom one of the numerous casinos opening in the region.We have collected recycling boxes that have been givento most homes in the region and from the Make PovertyHistory campaign we collected oral histories, wristbandsand placards. We also collected the most expensive bottleof champagne on the menu at a local bar (it was emptyof course!) to demonstrate the fact that the region consumesmore champagne per head than any other regionin England!1 The NERMH is a partnership established in 2003 between TWM (asHub Leader), Beamish: the North of England Open Air Museum,The Bowes Museum and Hartlepool Museums. There is a similarpartnership in each of the eight other English regions, establishedunder the Renaissance in the Regions scheme which is funded throughthe Museums Libraries and Archives Council.58

connecting collecting: littleMethodologies– the outreach approachA more time intensive methodology is working withcommunities, where decisions about collecting and representationare made by the community. TWM has anOutreach team which aims to engage hard to reach peoplein the processes of the museum, its collections andother activities. The Outreach team and the KCC havecarried out a lot of collaborative contemporary collectingprojects. We have worked with skaters, people involvedin the punk music scene in the North East, looked afteryoung people, disabled people and older people. Thesehave resulted in various outputs such as exhibitions inour community gallery, websites and publications.This paper will now analyse two case studies that wereboth part of a larger project aimed at collecting materialfrom black and minority ethnic groups to increase theirrepresentation in the museum. These projects ‘evolved’differently, and by comparing them, it is possible to learnmore about how contemporary collecting works.Case studies – Jewish livesand the Gowya groupThe Jewish Lives’ project started through the synagogueand was a successful project in terms of collecting a largeamount of new and varied material. A group of five womenstarted by working with an artist to create a textilepiece. Immediately the group decided to focus on theirfaith and everything incorporated in the textile piece isrepresentative of Judaism.At the same time the project developed, over thecourse of a year, into a contemporary collecting projectdue to the group’s understanding and commitment to‘capturing’ their heritage. Twelve oral histories were recorded,numerous digital images of family photographsand many objects representing the Jewish religion weretaken into the collection. The final output was a websiteincorporating clips from the oral history and the digitalimages. Increasingly TWM Outreach projects are takingon a more public final output, this is a shift from the pastwhen Outreach projects were more inward looking andthe audience was considered to be primarily the groupitself.The self named Gowya group (Gowya meaningstrong in Amharic, the language of North CentralEthiopia and one of the languages used in the group) wasmade up of local people, refugees and asylum seekersand developed very differently. It was slower to progressin collecting terms and resulted only in the collection ofdigital photographs. (However it was successful in differentways; a good relationship built up between the groupand TWM and the group enjoyed the experience). Theproject started in a similar way to ‘Jewish Lives’ with thegroup working on a creative project involving felt makingand printing, however, it remained purely creative.We continued to work with the group and we asked themhow they would represent themselves in the museumhoping we could record their heritage. They found thisa challenging question in contrast to the Jewish group.Finally, they focused on an Eritrean coffee ceremonywhich was a tradition amongst some of the women in thegroup. Images of the coffee ceremony were added to thecollection. After this they worked on a creative writingclass in which they told their stories of living or movingto the region. This became a publication – again a publicoutput.The group often seemed to be more interested inlearning about their new environment in England. Oneperson even commented that the thing they enjoyedthe most about the project was the English sandwichesthey had for lunch! This demonstrates that the ‘success’in collecting terms is dependent so much on the group’spriorities, on their understanding of museums and theirconcept of heritage and the role of material culture intheir lives.Key questionsThis paper concludes with two key questions whichTWM is considering. What is the key to successful communitycollecting?For TWM there are three key issues. Firstly workingthrough an established organisation provides museum59

connecting collecting: littlestaff with a venue to meet with groups, such as a communitycentre or synagogue that they are comfortable inand that does not seem alien and imposing. The organisationcan provide contacts with people who might beinterested in museum projects too, although of coursethis impacts on who we are then representing.Secondly, projects take longer where the group haslittle or no prior knowledge of the museum or wherethe group has competing demands for time. It is thereforeimportant to build up trust and a sense of what themuseum is about before embarking on collecting. Oftencraft based projects are used as starter projects to buildup this relationship.Thirdly, having staff that understand all of the issuesis essential. Our Outreach staff work to engage groups, tohelp them to think about representation and the museumcollections. By working through established organisationsTWM has also built up support and understandingwith workers or representatives from those organisationsso that they also engage groups in museum projects.What next for contemporarycollecting at TWM?TWM is committed to contemporary collecting and toworking with the community. TWM aims to continue tocritically consider the work that we do and look for areasto improve upon. This leads us to consider issues thathave arisen in the past three years.The TWM History team is assessing documentationprocedures, specifically discussing how to record thesecommunity projects within the objects’ official MODESrecords. MODES is a collections management system inBritish museums. In the past data held on the objects’MODES records has been limited to physical informationabout the object, such as dimensions and conditionof the object, and to information on the donor ratherthan capturing the story behind the object.The Outreach team will continue to work with ‘nontraditional’ museum audiences, however, museumsmust not neglect ‘traditional’ audiences in our collectingactivity.We must continue to understand how difficult it canbe to be representative even when communities decidehow to represent themselves; there are always some peoplewho are more forthcoming than others for a varietyof reasons. Choosing an object to represent identity is asnapshot of one person’s life at one specific time usuallyaround one issue.ReferencesMemorynet..Modes users association..Tyne & Wear Museum.Tyne & Wear Museum.Image captionsFig 1. Tyne and Wear Museums LogoFig 2. The Gowya group working on a creative writing projectFig 3. One of the most expensive bottles of champagne availablein NewcastleFig 4. Rugby ball donated by the Newcastle FalconsFig 5. Coffee ceremony performed by the Gowya groupFig 6. David Goldwater with objects donated to TWM(All photos: copyright Tyne & Wear Museums)60

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connecting collecting: wahlgren & svanbergArchaeological collecting,the contemporary and public involvementKatty H Wahlgren & Fredrik SvanbergThe Museum of National Antiquities, StockholmNew directions in archaeology, dealing withthe contemporary and with the public relationsof archaeology, have great potential to affect thecollecting practices of archaeological museums.Three recent projects at the Swedish Museumof National Antiquities may illustrate this. Inthis paper we briefly present and analyse theseprojects.The grand structures of archaeological collecting innorthern Europe were mainly set up in the late nineteenthcentury and the early decades of the twentiethcentury. These structures, and the creation of those nationalhistorical museums which function as the coreof the collection system, were very much shaped by theevolutionist, nationalist and racist beliefs of the time.Although the ideas about what a museum is and itsrole in society have changed profoundly since then, thepractices of collecting that were established more than ahundred years ago remain rather similar today and stillstructure current museum exhibition work, research andother practices. In order to enable new visions of historicalmuseums and to really break with evolutionism, nationalismand other ghosts from the past, it is not enoughjust to change policies and the contents of displays. Thedeep structures of historical museums in the form of collectingpractices must also be reconsidered.Relatively new, and increasingly influential archaeologicaldirections, dealing with the contemporary pastand the public dimensions of archaeology, have greatpotential to function as catalysts for new collection practices.The area of archaeologies of the contemporary inevitablybrings new kinds of artefacts to collections andraises ethical and political questions, since it must interactwith the world of the living. Public archaeology, onthe other hand, strives to involve people in the making ofhistory, with an aspiration for more inclusive, and evendemocratic, pasts and collections. A series of three recentresearch projects at the Swedish Museum of NationalAntiquities have dealt with these issues.In the collection and exhibition project FutureMemories the public decided what was to be exhibited andcollected. Their descriptions and ideas about the chosenartefacts were registered in the museum database. Suchpublic involvement in creating a new part of a collectiongives us a perspective on traditional museum practicesand how we deal with exhibited archaeological objects.As it turned out, these personal reflections on memorieschosen for the future influenced the perception of otherexhibited objects and their histories in the museum. Inaddition, the project shed light on current collectionpractices.The project Archaeologist for a Day consisted of a publicarchaeological excavation of the Museum of NationalAntiquities itself. The summer audience of 2007 was invitedto take part in the excavation of the central courtyardof the museum. A great number of artefacts from the last62

connecting collecting: wahlgren & svanberg350 years, relating to the history of the area as well as ofthe museum, were found and collected. The project demonstratedthe learning possibilities of involving people inthe archaeological process as well as the limits to accessibilityand public use of the collection database system.The third project, Public Contract Archaeology, exploredthe public relations of Swedish contract archaeologythrough the engagement of museum staff in a major archaeologicalproject. Here, we worked with the otherwiseradically neglected contemporary and public dimensionsof this type of project. A possible growing future generalengagement with these dimensions will undoubtedly resultin a very different archaeological system and differentmuseum collections.These projects are part of a general developmentalstrategy at the museum, based on current research(Merriman 2004; Buchli & Lucas 2001). We have also beenmost inspired by a keynote paper by Nick Merriman at theconference Curating for the Future at Manchester Museum(Merriman 2007). The aims of an inclusive archaeology,taking a serious interest in these new directions, are toinvolve the public in the practices of archaeological investigationand to engage people in interpretation processes.It also opens up ways for the professional archaeologist toadvance ethical awareness and self-reflection within thearchaeological community. Thus, working towards greaterpublic interaction in the museum, and with archaeologyreflecting on its contemporary context, traditional collectionpractices will inevitably be challenged. New kinds ofartefacts, collected in new ways, are just one aspect of this.The projects referred to above, which will be more fullypresented below, question artefact categorizations, policiesfor storage and display practices, as well as databaseorganization, design and accessibility. These projects thusincorporated frictions of traditional museum practices inseveral ways. The revealed points of friction are excellentstarting points for the reconsideration of outdated waysof doing things and initiating processes of change.Future memoriesThe concept of future memories plays with the establishedidea of memorabilia from ancient times. It turnsthe concept on its head. This twist becomes a work ofcontrast, which focuses on issues such as the significanceof things, the assembling of the collection and thestories that are put forward. The museum contributedthe framework, consisting of an exhibition form, andthe public created the content by choosing the objectsand stories that were to be sent on to the future. Thisworked at several different levels. The museum was enrichedby new stories and knowledge about the publiccomprehension of artefacts and their choices of historicalfocus. It also got attention in unexpected mediacontexts. The idea of future memories provoked reflectionon archaeological collecting within the museumand was the core issue of a professional debate amongarchaeologists on why certain objects are perceived asbearing information about the past, while others aredismissed as not being museum-worthy (Svanberg &Wahlgren 2007).Setting up an incavationThe setup allowed people to deposit their chosen futurememories in a case in the museum entrance hall duringthe spring of 2007. The objects were tagged with remindernotes with written stories and left on display until theend of the summer, when they were finally incavated ina pit in the museum courtyard. Each future memory wasphotographed and registered in the museum database.In this way, the source information about the objects andtheir stories are preserved for future studies even thoughthe things themselves are buried in the ground.On the incavation day, all of the objects were placedin a disorganized manor on a long table out in the museumcourtyard – a museum exhibition or a flea market?In the afternoon a solemn ceremony was performedwhere the public assisted in placing objects in the pit andshovelling soil to cover them.This is not a time capsule. The difference between anincavation and a time capsule is that the incavation focuseson the connection between concepts of the past inrelation to perceptions of the contemporary period andthe future, rather than on preserving deposited objectsfor future generations (Holtorf 2001; Wahlgren 2006).63

connecting collecting: wahlgren & svanbergThis may be the point of departure for engaging in questionson our role in history, for example, and what tracesour time will leave behind, but it is also a way of reflectingon what is left from past times and what has disappeared.These are core issues for a historical museum.The objects and their storiesA total of 560 objects were handed in and the collectionconsisted of all sorts of things, from what people happenedto have in their pockets, to carefully thought outitems that were brought especially for deposition. Thescope included train tickets, hair ribbons, make-up andsanitary towels as well as irons, telephones, cycle pumpsand typewriters. Several people left photographs, either aportrait of themselves or of someone closely related andbeloved. There were jewellery, ties, cuddly toys, newspapers,key rings, coins from all over the world and compactdisks with favourite music or home videos. Some objectswere also sent in by post from people who were unable tocome to the museum.Many of the objects may seem ordinary or even trivialto those who do not make an effort to read the remindernotes. It is quite clear that the content of the story is notdirectly related to the material value of the object. Someof the most intriguing thoughts were attached to papers,simple gadgets or plastic toys. Mostly people wanted totell about common issues such as what makes them feelat home, often about love and loved ones. Since the objectscould be left anywhere in the case and could laterbe moved by other visitors, they also became commentson each other when placed in different combinations.A rough categorization might look like this:• Changing times – out-of-fashion stuff. Examples: dial telephone,typewriter, computer floppy disk, alarm clock.• Environment and politics. Examples: bicycle pump, trainticket, EU tie, bird feeder, badge.• Love and friendship. Examples: make-up, hair ribbon,tampon, photograph, letter.• Me and my home. Examples: iron, potato peeler, keys,dishcloth.• Leisure. Examples: cuddly toy, music player, CD, game.• Tourist greetings. Examples: coin, keyring, leaflet, badge.The most shocking contribution to Future Memories wasneither a ticket or love letter nor a useful tool. In the casewe found a small plastic zip-lock bag with some of theashes of Nathan, who died in a motorcycle accident inCanada in 2005. Together with these remains was a messageof remembrance from his best friend. Nathan lovedto travel but did not manage to visit all of the places thathe had hoped to. In honour of his memory, the familyand a few close friends are spreading his ashes in beautifulplaces all over the world. His mother told us thatin addition to Sweden, Nathan is present at the MountEverest base camp in Nepal, in Hawaii, South America,Germany, Scotland, Belize and at several places inCanada. She considers Future Memories to be a nice wayof keeping and spreading his memory, which makes iteasier to live with the loss of a much-loved son. The museumchose not to bury Nathan’s ashes together with theother objects in the courtyard. In consultation with hismother, we have registered the deposition in the museumdatabase and, according to her request, applied forpermission to spread the ashes at sea in the Stockholmarchipelago.Garbage or treasure?Future Memories started processes in which the museumwas forced to reflect upon collection and exhibitionpractices. Due to the rules governing the treatment of accessionedobjects, it was not possible to give the futurememories real inventory numbers and they were onlygiven an identity code in the database. This clearly illustratedthe current limit for which objects are acceptable inthe collection and what kind of preservation conditionscurrent policies force the museum to offer accessionedobjects. The greatest stumbling block was the questionof how the incavated objects, without preparation orconservation against decay in the ground, could be accountedfor from the perspective of collecting. This offeredinteresting insights, as the collecting practices andthe regulatory framework for the retention of collected64

connecting collecting: wahlgren & svanbergobjects were revealed to have major implications for thepossible uses of, and public interaction with, the collections.A serious aim to create exhibitions with greater interactivepossibilities must thus include serious attentionto, and reconsiderations of, the practices of collectionwork.The fact that the future memories were not accessionedto the collection is decisive for their status as museumartefacts. Admittedly, the objects and their storiesare accessible and searchable in the database, but theirusefulness for research as well as for the public wouldbe considerably improved if they had received full statusas museum objects. The documented items will still besaved for future use, even though the objects themselvesare buried and will decay in the ground.Archaeologist for a dayThe current building complex of the Museum of NationalAntiquities was constructed in 1934–1939. The collectionswere moved there from an older nineteenth-centurybuilding (now the National Museum of Art), and thefirst exhibition, Ten Thousand Years in Sweden, opened in1943. From this starting point the policies of the museumhave gradually changed, partly in line with changes inarchaeology as a discipline. Of course, general museumpolicies have also changed. Museums currently strive towork with pluralism, and more involving and interactiverelationships with audiences – as a kind of forum.They want to become more ‘responsive’ (Ågren & Nyman2002; Lang, Reeve & Woollard 2006).In this climate of willingness to change, there aregood reasons to look back on how institutions have developedhistorically. To be able to change, new perspectivesare needed on current museum positions and theroads that led to them. The history of how ideas andpolicies change over time is certainly interesting, butwhen it comes to museums, they are only half the story.The 150-year history of the modern cultural historicalmuseums also needs to be seen and analysed as a historyof changing practices. How and why were they setup, what have they done and how were they structured?Furthermore, to what extent do old practices linger onand continue to reproduce only slightly modified structures,which on second thoughts are not in line withcurrent ideas? In particular, the practices surroundingcollecting and classification systems, the selections andhierarchies of artefacts and the changing interpretationsof the objects themselves, are areas that most museumsneed more knowledge about. What has been collected,and based on whose perspective? What stories have beentold and not told?If new aspects of the output of museums, and whose(hi)stories are told, are to come forward, then sourcesother than the traditional ones must be sought. These mayconsist of photographic archives, exhibition documentation,the archived parts of collections, and relationshipsbetween the composition of the collections as wholes,and the selections made for exhibitions. The modern historyof artefacts in their new and very artificial museumcontexts can also be analysed. What has been hidden inthe museum cupboards? Such investigations might wellbe seen as archaeology of sorts.Archaeological investigations ascatalystsArchaeological investigations may have different aims.In the summer of 2007 an archaeological investigationof the inner courtyard of the museum was initiated.Professional archaeologists led it, but the museum audiencewas invited to take part in the investigation andinterpret their finds. The artefacts were accessioned andthe interpretations registered in the museum database(inventory no 34 759). The aim of the excavation was toinvestigate the history of the museum itself as reflectedin the material remains in the courtyard, and to catalysean internal discussion of the museum’s own history andcollection practices. Another important aim was to studythe situation itself, and to make the museum more competentat handling an interactive audience in an excavationcontext.In an earlier study of the museum’s photo archive, itbecame obvious that the educational activities of previousdecades were next to invisible in the preserved ar-65

connecting collecting: wahlgren & svanbergchives. A probable reason for this is that this work wasseen as low status. Artefacts from more or less all exhibitionshave been documented, compiling a collection ofthousands of pictures, while there are less than a handfulof pictures of the educational work. The excavation of thecourtyard, the site of numerous learning activities sincethe 1940s, might in that perspective actually provide asupplementary historical record. As it happened, thousandsof objects from the time when the complex wasbuilt, and from some 300 previous years of neighbourhoodactivities and history, had also been deposited inthe few cubic metres of excavated courtyard soil.The public excavation, as a form, is a rather obviousplatform for getting audiences involved in the explorationand making of history. The archaeological processis demonstrated, gives a sort of understanding, which atleast in theory makes people see archaeological exhibitionsdifferently – they now know how those objects endedup in glass cases. At the same time, letting people excavateand interpret objects that became part of a collection,to be curated for eternity by the museum, turned out tobe very popular. Many people later searched, and are stillsearching, the database for ‘their’ artefacts, knowing theythemselves have taken part in making the museum.This work with public involvement clearly outlinedthe possibilities and limits for public work/public availabilityof various dimensions of the museum’s collectionand registration system. It turned out that this system,and primarily the database, was very much made fromthe viewpoint of museum specialists, making it hard foraudiences to access and use it. This was indeed true forthe ‘public’ search application, although the finds fromthe courtyard held, and still hold, high rankings in thesearch statistics. The database is otherwise more or lessonly accessed by researchers.Authenticity and collectionpracticesDuring a test excavation in the courtyard, in the autumnof 2006, a reconstructed Viking Age cremation burial wasfound and investigated. The (previously employed) educationalstaff, having made it in the 1980s, or possibly1990s, had deposited some replicas of cremated bones, alarge mosaic bead, an object made from iron thread anda copy of an oval brooch.The oval brooch was accessioned and registered asa regular object, an act that stirred some controversyamong staff, and three different positions rapidly formed.Some thought that the brooch was an object – end ofstory, and some thought that it was a copy – not to beraised to the status of a ‘real’ collected object. Finally,some people held the opinion that it was originally just acopy, but that its time in the ground and its subsequentrediscovery and collection, through the process of an archaeologicalexcavation, had in fact ‘made it’ into a realobject. In other words, it had passed through a processwhich lent it authenticity.The questions raised by the discussion about the ovalbrooch, as well as the discovered limits to public accessand use of the database mentioned above, relate to andmay illustrate more or less unconscious museum positionson bigger issues of classification, authenticity andthe unspoken values behind (and generated by) the collectionpractices of the museum. These positions, and thecompetence to actively make choices in this context, willbecome more and more important as public interactionincreases and the area of archaeologies of the more orless contemporary becomes interesting to more archaeologists(which will in turn generate more such materialin the collection).In a global context, the idea of fixed criteria for authenticityand the value of cultural objects is graduallybeing abandoned. UNESCO sponsored major researchwork in the 1990s in order to try to find a globally acceptabledefinition of authenticity. One of the most importantresults, the Nara Document on Authenticity, statesthat all judgements on the value of cultural heritage varybetween cultures, and may also vary within the sameculture. Thus it is not possible to base judgements ofauthenticity on defined universal criteria (Larsen 1995;Myrberg 2004; Holtorf 2005). This means that a view ofauthenticity is dependent on the context of the viewer.The status of the oval brooch mentioned above dependsentirely on the dispositions of its collector.66

connecting collecting: wahlgren & svanbergHowever, if this is true, the converse is also true –that the position of the collector is constructed by thestatus and classification system of the collection. Notonly does the collector make the collection, but the collectionsystem and practices also make the collector inan intriguing interplay. The question of the authenticityor non-authenticity of the oval brooch is not a questionas to whether it has some essential qualities or not. Thequestion of where the borderline between public interactionpossibilities and professional collection practicesshould be drawn is not a question of finding a ‘natural’system. These questions can only be answered by makingdecisions about what the museum wants to be – that isto say, its identity and value system. The oval brooch canbe seen as authentic and valuable or as a worthless copy– but that makes two different museums.Public contract archaeologyThe collecting activity of archaeological museums is mostoften dependent on what archaeological projects, stagedby other institutions, choose to excavate or are commissionedto excavate, in a given landscape section which isto be utilized by modern society. In countries where rescueexcavations are legislated, this context thus becomesthe most important one for the selection of material remainsto be documented and brought to museums.The structure of the Swedish contract archaeologysystem seldom allows for any higher degree of public interactionwith the process or for the excavation of the materialremains of later periods. The project Public ContractArchaeology explored the public relations of Swedish contractarchaeology through the engagement of museumstaff in an archaeological project in the suburb of Hjulsta,north of Stockholm. Major highway construction workwas underway in the area, and archaeologists had evaluatedthe landscape section, focusing their attention on thelarge-scale remains of what had formerly been Hjulstavillage. As it turned out, settlements from the Iron Ageuntil some time in the 1970s had been located on the site;it had also been a burial site during the Iron Age. The archaeologicalproject, however, was commissioned to investigateall of the older remains, but no remains youngerthan those from the seventeenth century. They were alsonot allowed to do any public relations work.The museum project first undertook an investigationto identify the people who might be interested in takingpart in the archaeological project and to find out whatwould then be interesting for them to investigate. Thiswas based on interviews and visits to institutions in thearea. It turned out that local schools were very interestedand that their obvious starting point was the recent historyof the area, in other words, twentieth-century eventsand actions, which could easily be related to their historycurriculum.The project aimed to excavate, document and collectobjects from part of one of the main twentieth-centuryfarm buildings of Hjulsta, in cooperation with threeclasses of teenage school children. This was done in theautumn of 2007 and proved to be an interesting complementto the ongoing contract archaeological project,which was not allowed to direct its attention to theseremains.In this project, the museum thus reached out to explorethe initial stages of the collection process, a pointat which, under normal circumstances, other institutionsmake the most important decisions in relation to whatlater becomes the collection. As the project progressed, itbecame clear that the growing interest within archaeologyfor contemporary history and public engagement wouldlead to changes in the selection of sites and materials forexcavation and collection work. It also illuminated theneed for development of strategies to promote museumengagement in the beginnings of the collection process,and usually that is in the contract archaeology situation.Otherwise the archaeological museum will never be ableto gain further control of its collection system.Lessons learnedTo deal more intensively with the public relations ofarchaeology, and to be more engaged in the contemporary,has definite consequences for the collections andcollection practices of archaeological museums such asours. As it turns out, the converse also holds true. Theway museums work with collections will structure and67

connecting collecting: wahlgren & svanberglimit the ways in which they may engage with audiences.These limits and structures may only become visible ifactively explored. We believe that such active projectwork, though it will most probably generate some frictions,is the best way to institutional self-discovery anddevelopment. (Fig 5)ReferencesBuchli, V & Lucas, G (2001), ‘The Absent Present: Archaeologiesof the Contemporary Past’, in Archaeologies of theContemporary Past. New York & London: Routledge.Holtorf, C (2001), ‘Archaeological Incavation Berlin-Schliemannstraße: Final Report.’ Cambridge, UK:University of Cambridge/Department of Archaeology,available at .Holtorf, C (2004), From Stonehenge to Las Vegas: Archaeology asPopular Culture. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.Lang, C, Reeve, J & Woollard, V, eds (2006), The ResponsiveMuseum: Working with Audiences in the Twenty-First Century.Aldershot: Ashgate.Larsen, K, ed (1995), Nara Conference on Authenticity: Proceedingsof the Conference in Nara, Japan, 1–6 November 1994. Tokyo:Agency for Cultural Affairs.Merriman, N (2004), ‘Introduction: diversity and dissonance inpublic archaeology’, in Merriman, N, ed, Public Archaeology.London: Routledge.Merriman, N (2007), ‘A sustainable future for collections?’Keynote speech at Curating for the Future: A conferenceexploring the curatorial role in the 21st century. 19September 2007. Organised by Renaissance North Westin partnership with the University of Manchester andthe North West Federation of Museums and Galleries.Warrington: MLA North West, available at .Myrberg, N (2004), ‘False Monuments? On antiquity andauthenticity.’ Public Archaeology vol 3:3.Svanberg, F & Wahlgren, K H (2007), Publik arkeologi. Lund:Nordic Academic Press.Wahlgren, K (2006), ‘Memories for our future: Anarchaeological incavation in the Swedish suburbs.’ PublicArchaeology, vol 5:2.Ågren, P-U & Nyman, S, eds (2002), Museum 2000: Confirmationor Challenge? Stockholm: Riksutställningar.Image captionsFig 1. Archaeologist for a day. An archaeological investigation ofthe inner courtyard of the museum itself in the summer of 2007.Photo: Christer Åhlin, Museum of National Antiquities.Fig 2: Incavation of future memories at the Museum of NationalAntiquities on 26 August 2007. Photo: Christer Åhlin, Museumof National Antiquities.Fig 3. The future memories are accessible through the websitewww.historiska.se.Fig 4: Public engagement and a more thorough interest inthe present may take archaeological museums and collectionpractices out of their traditional frameworks.Fig 5: The collection of future memories was in progress fromApril until the end of August 2007. Anybody could leave anobject in a case in the entrance hall, see what others had left andread their stories. Photo: Andreas Hamrin, Museum of NationalAntiquities.68

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connecting collecting: GarnertWhen old collections are renewed.Exploring cultural meanings of radioreceivers and satellite dishesJan GarnertNational Museum of Science and Technology, StockholmIs it a common thing for museums to try, in theircontemporary studies and collecting, to make connectionswith equivalent, older studies and artefactcollections? Such a linkage, by applying newways of interpretation to earlier projects, wouldprobably make both gain in value considerably.In 2006 the National Museum of Science and Technologyengaged in a contemporary study. It took place inBotkyrka, an ethnically diverse suburb of Stockholm.In focus were satellite dishes and their use. The museumalso acquired a satellite dish that is now an artefact in itscollections.This contemporary study is one part of a two yearproject called Radio Receivers and Satellite Dishes, whichhas been co-funded by the Swedish Arts Council, andthe National Museum of Science and Technology. Thesecond part of the project is a survey of the museum’scollection of radio receivers from the 1930s, 1940s, and1950s.The museum curators Sonja Fagerholm and EmmaKleman have from the beginning been running theproject, which in Swedish is titled Riksradio och parabol.They explored the radio collections, conducted the interviews,and are currently making some of their resultsavailable on the Internet (see www.tekniskamuseet.se).These texts and pictures are to be published in the springof 2008, in Swedish. The project was initiated and ismanaged by senior curator Helene Sjunnesson, and JanGarnert, research coordinator.Radio receivers have been an important cultural experiencein Swedish everyday life since the mid 1920s,while satellite dishes are a fairly new experience. Theybelong in the here and now. We regard this study ascomplementary to the collection of radio receivers eventhough, technically speaking, we are not collecting anddocumenting the same kind of technology. Instead wechose a contemporary artefact which holds culturalmeanings similar to those of the old radio receivers.That is, we mainly paid attention to how people actuallyuse satellite technology, and to its cultural and socialmeanings.Presented above is the background to this short article,which I will finish by raising a question directed tomuseum professionals: How many of you try to makeconnections in your contemporary studies and collectingto equivalent older artefact collections by applyingnew ways of interpretation to them? To what extent isconnecting collecting to the older museum collectionson your mind, and on your agenda?Fieldwork in BotkyrkaUntil last year the National Museum of Science andTechnology had never before attempted to documentsatellite dishes and their use. During the museum’sproject in Botkyrka one was collected, which is enough,70

connecting collecting: Garnertfrom a technological point of view. It used to belong to afamily of Serbian origin.The aim of the fieldwork in Botkyrka was to investigatehow members of ethnic minority communities usesatellite dishes. The methods were mainly interviews,field observations, and photography. Along with the satellitedish we now have about 30 interviews with satellitedish owners. Family names like Khan, Savic, Hoshyar,Baryawno, Hadjiomar, and Gelal indicate the rich varietyof life experiences to be met in Botkyrka.One reason for recent Swedish citizens in this suburbto use satellite dishes, is their wish to stay in touch withevents, people, places, and cultures in countries theyonce left, some of them for good.The interviews focused on what people actuallywatch, considering aspects such as age, class, gender,and context. Are, for example, certain programmes as arule watched in the company of other family membersor alone? Aspects such as time and change were also important.What the interviewees watch might change withtime. Cultural diversities, and indeed cultural identities,are processes. A thorough discussion of the concept ofself-identity and self-identification would most certainlybe applicable, if this had been a research project.Contexts, acquisitions, andcollectionsFrom the late 1920s onwards, another media technology,namely broadcasting and radio receivers, increasinglyconnected people with distant places. Radios were quitecommon in Sweden in the 1930s, but being a radio listenerin those days usually did not mean staying in touchwith old home countries. The vast majority of people livingin Sweden in those days were, and had been sinceway back in time, native Swedes.Thus, when radio receivers were a novelty Swedestuned in to radio stations like Hilversum, Oslo, Berlin,and Luxembourg primarily out of curiosity about music,politics, and maybe just spoken languages in other culturesand countries. The technology enabled mediatedcultural meetings. The world came closer, and it could doso regardless of whether you lived in a city like Stockholmor in a remote, rural area.These new audio-transmitted opportunities forcultural blending have even inspired song writers. VanMorrison is one of them, recalling good memories fromradio listening in his song ‘In the Days before Rock ‘n’Roll’, one of the tracks in his album Enlightenment (1990).In the lyrics he is down on his knees, ‘going over thewavebands’, tuning in radio stations like ‘Luxembourg,Athlone, Budapest, AFM, Hilversum, Helvetia’ on hisTelefunken radio.There are about 900 radio receivers in the collectionsof the Museum of Science and Technology. Among theoldest ones are those that date back to the early 1920s,when national broadcasting started. In the project a specialeffort was made to explore receivers from the 1930sto the 1950s and to understand the use of them from thepoint of view of cultural diversity.So far, most of them have been lacking contextualinformation. Disturbingly well known to museum professionals,I dare say, is the sad fact that this kind of informationoften is missing about artefacts in museumcollections. Far too often the only information you canexpect to find, at least in my museum’s collections, arethe donor’s name, the date and year when the artefactwas acquired, its size, the material it is made of, and ‘whatit is’, here meaning the basic function, for example lightbulb, bicycle, lorry, or washing machine.Parallel linesThere are two points to be made here. Firstly, encouragedby the wealth of information available about contemporarysatellite dish use, we have tried to enrich thecollections of old radio receivers with more information,and with more meanings. This, we believe, will make theold collections more meaningful to museum visitors, andalso more meaningful to scholars.Secondly, we believe it is of future and crucial generalimportance that the old artefact collections are renewedby becoming more socially and culturally meaningful incontemporary society.Our way of documenting a contemporary technology71

connecting collecting: Garnertand, in parallel, exploring an older technology with somesimilar cultural and social meanings, can methodologicallybe compared to the concept of ‘research stations’. InSweden this concept was introduced and included in theprofessional vocabulary of museums of cultural historyin the 1960s. It means that a museum chooses to returnrepeatedly to one or several places for field work, sometimeseven decades later.In 1937 the Nordiska Museet engaged in what is sincelong considered a classical example of cultural-historicalfieldwork, in a village in Dalarna, some 400 km northwestof Stockholm. The published result was the bookGruddbo på Sollerön, en byundersökning, which if translatedwould read Gruddbo on Sollerö Island: An exploration of avillage (1938). It’s a coffee table sized publication, partly, Isuspect, because it was a Festschrift to honour ProfessorSigurd Erixon at the Nordiska Museet. In 1997 a new researchteam from the museum returned to the very samevillage, and a second report was published, called Åter tillSollerön (Return to Sollerö Island) (2002).From the early 1970s onwards the Maritime HistoryMuseum in Stockholm engaged in a number of fieldworkprojects among dockers, in fishing communities, and onboard icebreakers and other kinds of vessels. In 1976 themuseum hired architects, a social anthropologist, andan ethnologist to document old and recent vernaculararchitecture, holiday makers’ attitudes and activities,and the living conditions and everyday life of permanentinhabitants of a maritime community north-east ofStockholm.Sixteen years later the museum returned for a newinvestigation. The intention was not to follow up on recentevents, but to approach the community with a newset of research questions. In focus was the local maritimehistory, and above all how familiarity with local historycan be understood as one expression of cultural belongingto a community.These are just two examples, both pointing to an irresistiblereason for returning – by adding a new study toan old one, both gain in value. In a similar way, I believethe parallel studies of radio receivers and satellite dishesadd value to each other.It is my wish for the future that curators at theNational Museum of Science and Technology, whendoing contemporary research, will search the museumcollections for old technologies that once met humanneeds similar to those that contemporary technologiesmeet today.Such a strategy would be like drawing parallel lines,lines of understanding that link together artefacts fromdifferent ages, but artefacts serving similar human effortsand needs. Two parallel studies, meaning two ways of approachingan interesting issue, are probably more productivethan simply a contemporary study. Such a way ofworking probably also enables us to ask more qualifiedquestions.But, how many museum professionals are today alreadyworking in this way in their contemporary researchand documentation projects? How many are dedicated toa strategy of parallel returning to old artefact collections,with the aim of culturally and socially contextualizingthem?Or, was perhaps Zelda Baveystock only too well informedwhen she claimed, at the conference ConnectingCollecting, that ‘we’re not obsessed enough with usingwhat we have already documented.’ I hope she will beproved wrong, eventually.ReferencesBerg, Gösta & Svensson, Sigfrid, eds (1938), Gruddbo påSollerön: En byundersökning tillägnad Sigurd Erixon 26/3 1938.Stockholm: Thule.Björklund, Anders & Gustafsson Renius, Lotten (2006),‘Hjälteporträtt och räddningsaktioner’, in Silvén, Eva &Gudmundsson, Magnus, eds, Samtiden som kulturarv: Svenskamuseers samtidsdokumentation 1975–2000. Stockholm:Nordiska museets förlag.Garnert, Jan (1996), ‘Rooting in History: Local Identity in aSwedish Maritime Community’, in Anttonen, Pertti J, ed,Making Europe in Nordic Contexts. Turku: The Nordic Instituteof Folklore.Hammarlund-Larsson, Cecilia, Larsson, Bo & Rosengren,Annette, eds (2002), Åter till Sollerön: Om kulturarv, folk ochlandsbygd. Stockholm: Nordiska museets förlag.Silvén, Eva & Gudmundsson, Magnus (2006), ‘Twenty-FiveYears in the Field’, in Silvén, Eva & Gudmundsson,72

connecting collecting: GarnertMagnus, eds, Samtiden som kulturarv: Svenska museerssamtidsdokumentation 1975–2000. Stockholm: Nordiskamuseets förlag.Bibliographical notesThe book Gruddbo på Sollerön, en byundersökning was publishedby the Nordiska Museet in 1938, regrettably withouta summary in English. Neither does its follow-up,Åter till Sollerön, published by the Nordiska Museet in2002, carry a summary in English. The Maritime HistoryMuseum’s contemporary fieldwork projects are discussedby Anders Björklund and Lotten Gustafsson Reinius inthe Nordiska Museet publication Samtiden som kulturarv(2006). The introduction by the editors, Eva Silvén andMagnus Gudmundsson, to this Swedish language bookis published in parallel in English.Image captionsFig 1. A satellite dish on the outlook in Botkyrka. Photo: AnnaGerdén/The Museum of Science and Technology, 2006.Fig 2. Orion radio receiver, model 100, manufactured in 1932.In the collections of the Museum of Science and Technology thisartefact is identified by the number TeM 47041. Photo: TheMuseum of Science and Technology, 2007.Fig 3. Taking part of visualised telecommunitaions in Botkyrkawith the help of hand held remote controls, satellite dishes, TVsets, some more technology, and knowing how to handle thetechnology. Photo: Anna Gerdén/The Museum of Science andTechnology, 2006.73

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connecting collecting: kotańskaThe photographic collectionin the Historical Museum of WarsawAnna KotańskaThe Historical Museum of WarsawIn spring 2007 the Historical Museum ofWarsaw finished the celebration of the 70th anniversaryof its existence. It is the main institutioncollecting, preserving, researching and showingobjects connected with Warsaw and its inhabitants.The museum is sprawled out over 11 tenementsin the heart of Poland’s capital – in theOld Market Square – which is on the UNESCOWorld Heritage List. Here you can see uniqueobjects: paintings, prints, coins, medals, furniture,artefacts etc, referring to the history of our capital.This article describes the biggest collection ofthe Historical Museum of Warsaw – the collectionof 160,000 photos, negatives and postcardsin the Iconography Department. (Fig 4)The collection preserved in the Iconography Departmentwas created thanks to purchases and donations. A significantvalue of this collection is the fact that the objectsrepresent consecutive phases of the developmentof Warsaw and Polish photography and they are an invaluablesource for learning about the history of Poland’scapital.Priorities in the collecting policy(purchases and donations)What are our priorities in acquiring exhibits? Generallyspeaking we are interested in photos on the subject ofWarsaw – the city and its residents. We collect photographsdepicting historic buildings and other architecturalobjects, views of streets and squares, pictures illustratingall the changes in the city’s appearance over theyears.It is important to have as many photographs as possibleshowing all aspects of the city’s everyday life, forinstance public transport, trade, industry and craft and ofcourse political and cultural life, because they provide aninsight into the real Warsaw of decades ago. Photos presentinginteriors of Warsaw institutions, palaces, shopsetc. are of special value for us, because they are rarely puton the market.Photographs of persons whose life or activity wereconnected with the capital city of Poland constitute thesecond aspect of our searches. We have many photographsboth of people who rendered great service to ourcity and anonymous Varsovians.As important as the subject is its authorship andplace of birth. Therefore we look for photos from Warsawstudios. Our main aim in this field is to reconstruct thepanorama of firms, also including ephemeral ones. Nextto the works of outstanding masters of the camera wecollect works taken by unknown photographers.75

connecting collecting: kotańskaOn this basis we are creating a collection containingexcellent and valuable material for researching historyof Polish photography, which – I would remind youwith pride – significantly influenced the development ofEuropean art.Decisions about purchases of new exhibits are madeby the Board of Purchase, which is a special body of curatorsrepresenting individual departments of our museum.Then we assess submitted earlier offers, taking intoaccount the essential value of the exhibits, price and usefulnessfor our collection. We also systematically trackthe flow of Varsoviana and sometimes we attend auctionsof works of art.Donations are the second form of acquisition of exhibits.Every decision about handing over a mementoto our museum shows that the function and role of ourinstitution is fully approved. They are often unexpectedgifts and among those which have come to the museumover the last 70 years, photos play a special role – notfor their market price although sometimes we receiveexceptionally precious objects, but because photographsbelong to the most personal mementoes, parting withwhich is very difficult.The culmination of the 70 years of our museum’sexistence was the major temporary exhibition entitledDonations and Donors. It showed, among other things,the most interesting Varsoviana which the HistoricalMuseum of Warsaw has received during the seven pastdecades. In this way we also wanted to honour the mostgenerous donors.Donations come not only from Warsaw and Polandbut also from all corners of the world: from Europeancountries, the United States of America, Canada, theRepublic of South Africa, and Israel. For instance: oneday an unexpected donation came from the USA thanksto Mr Alexander Allport, who decided to send to Polandphotographs taken by his father a few years after the endof World War I. Mr Fayette Allport was in Poland in 1922as a representative of the Department of Commerce inWashington, and the result of his business trip was boththe report Can Poland Come Back? and pictures of Warsaw.It is a very interesting material, showing the city in thefirst years after the reborn Polish state, taken from a foreigner’sperspective.I will also mention the donation of a German, DrGerhard Wiechmann (who donated through a thirdperson). During the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 he wasin Warsaw doing military service as a doctor in a fieldhospital. He took then a series of colour (!) slides anddecided in 1976 to give a part of copies to the HistoricalMuseum of Warsaw. Colour photographic material from1944, taken in war circumstances, is of course a rarity,the more so because its author was a German who couldmove in the occupation zone, inaccessible to Polish photographersfrom the Information and Propaganda Officeof the Home Army (the Polish military formation of thePolish Underground State).We can describe these objects not only from theirartistic and iconographic point of view, but also payingspecial attention to the donors’ interest and passion forcollecting. We cannot compare donations mechanically,because numbers sometimes do not speak for themselves.Do 88 photographs mean a lot or not much? If weare talking about museum’s standards it is quite a lot, butif we are talking about the Kronenberg family – a wellreputedassimilated family of Polish Jews – it is very little.But these are the only photos (next to other mementoes)which remained of the influential Kronenbergs and theirfabulous fortune.Review of the collectionOur rich and diverse collection cannot be described in ashort article. But I will mention the most important andunique sets from the artistic, formal and iconographicpoint of view.One of the most interesting sets kept at theIconography Department is the collection thematicallyconnected with the January Uprising of 1863 and the periodbefore it. The Uprising was a big rebellion for independenceagainst Russian invaders. We must rememberthat Polish land was then since 70 years under Russian,Prussian and Austrian rule. And Warsaw, which wasincluded in the so-called Kingdom of Poland – a stateorganism entirely subordinated to tsarist Russia, had tosuffer the hated invader’s yoke. The unique photos taken76

connecting collecting: kotańska140 years ago have a value of an exceptional document ofthese times. There are portraits of political and patrioticactivists, insurgents, Siberian exiles and exiles to distantAsian regions of Russia, women in so-called dress of nationalmourning, as well as views of Warsaw with clearlyvisible tents of the tsarist army ‘keeping order’ in theoccupied city, scenes from religious processions whichhave patriotic overtones. (Fig. 1 & 3).This collection is a perfect example of using photography– which was a young art at that time – for thepurposes of propaganda. Photos taken mainly by KarolBeyer (1818–1877), a pioneer in the field of Polish photography,were reproduced in thousands and purchasedon a large scale by inhabitants of the Kingdom of Polandand by countrymen from the other two annexed territories.They propagated a fight for independence andthe ‘Polish issue’ in Europe, cementing society arounda dream of freedom. And one more thing: among 1,300photos devoted to this subject which we possess, nearlyhalf are donations from among others relatives of exilesand insurgents. This fact is both moving and inspiringbecause it proves that the memory of heroic ancestorsis still alive.In comparison to the static views taken by Beyer,Warsaw in the 1880s and 1890s, presented by KonradBrandel (1839–1920) is city vibrant with life. These scenesfrom different celebrations, events and sights from markets,parks, horse races, popular festivities, were an effectof his important invention of the photo revolver, i.e. acamera for shutter photos. Thanks to it, the unique flavourand staffage of the city – the essence of Warsaw everydaylife – was recorded.Many of the treasured objects in our collection connectthematically with the period between the WorldWars. After 123 years of national bondage Poland regainedindependence and Poles started with unprecedentedenthusiasm and energy to build a modern,democratic state. Photographs, negatives and postcardsin our collection illustrate various spheres of Warsaw lifein 1920s–1930s: important political events and nationalcelebrations, diplomatic and artistic life, everyday lifeand of course architecture (for example housing-estatebuildings).This is very important documentation giving a notionof the character and ambience of the Polish capital,called the Paris of the North, and at that time developingdynamically after the years of bondage. The city architecture,views of its streets and squares, most of all are presentedin two leading sets: photographs taken by ZofiaChomętowska and Henryk Poddębski.One of the most famous Polish art-photographers,Zofia Chomętowska (1902–1991), significantly influencedour collection, as both author and donor. Shehanded over to our museum an impressive set consistingof about 3,000 negatives representative of her rich artisticwork. Zofia Chomętowska, a woman of aristocratic background,thanks to her family connections and a busy sociallife, made a series of photographs, whose value – inthe context of war losses – cannot be overestimated. I amthinking of a cycle presenting interiors of Warsaw palaces– Potocki, Radziwiłł, Czapski, Blank, Przeź dzieckiand others. Although most of them were rebuilt, all thewealth of their furnishings and first-class art treasurescollected by generations of Polish aristocracy and entrepreneurswas lost.An excellent complement to the theme are works ofHenryk Poddębski (1890–1945). His perfectly arrangedphotographs convey both the classic beauty of Warsawmonuments and the elegant simplicity of newly-builtobjects and layout in the 1920s–1930s.The period of inter-war prosperity years was brutallydisrupted by the outbreak of the World War II. Thereis no space here to describe the trauma of Poles during1939–1945, caused by Nazi Germany, but I wouldlike to quote some numbers concerning Warsaw: about650,000 Varsovians died, the entire civilian populationof 600,000 was expelled. Warsaw lost 90% of its placesof worship, 80% of its museums and theatres. Overall,only 34 of 957 listed buildings came through intact. In1945 more than 20 million cubic metres of the stuff wasultimately taken away.We have a shocking corpus of material testifying tothe damage of Warsaw in 1939 and daily aspects of lifein occupied Warsaw and finally the Warsaw Uprising of1944. (Let me remind that Poland was the first countrywhich came under attack from Nazi Germany and77

connecting collecting: kotańskaWarsaw was the first capital city brutally bombarded,starting on the 1st of September.)To describe in the shortest way the phenomenon ofthe Warsaw Uprising I will quote a few words of the currentpresident of Poland, Mr Lech Kaczyński, spokenwhen he was mayor of Warsaw. On the 60th anniversaryof the outbreak of the Rising, at the opening of aphoto exhibition (organized by our museum) at the Jeude Paume – Site Sully in Paris, he said: ‘It was, no doubt,the biggest battle, fought by a guerrilla army during WarWorld II on any city streets.’One of the most famous photographers of theWarsaw Uprising of 1944 was Sylwester Braun, alias ‘Kris’(1909–1996), who has taken more than 3,000 negatives,recording day-to-day events and scenes which tookplace in the fighting city. Half of them have survived tothe present. The uniqueness of this collection, apart fromits unquestioned documentary value, consists in the factthat Braun in a masterly fashion transmitted the ambienceof the days of September and November 1944. Thatis why his photographs showing the scale of damage toWarsaw just before the Uprising surrender make such ashocking impression on spectators.But we also owe him another extraordinary documentfrom the beginning of 1945, which is composed of300 negatives. They present not only the infinity of ruins,which were left after the metropolis of 1.3 million people,but also the return of the first inhabitants.The photographs taken by the previously mentionedZofia Chomętowska in 1945–1946 have a slightly differentcharacter. On one hand they show the enormity ofthe damage, on the other hand semblances of normal lifein the capital just after the war. (Fig 5).Sixty years have passed since the end of World War II,but still our museum receives new, priceless donations,referring to these dramatic events. In 2004, Mr WincentySzober handed over original microfilms taken by himselfduring the Warsaw Uprising. Overall only 85 shots camethrough intact.We also possess a very interesting set of many thousandsof photos presenting the period of Warsaw reconstruction.Photographs taken by A Funkiewicz, LJabrzemski and S Leszczyński show the city rising fromthe ruins and coming back to normal life.Our collection is systematically and consistently enrichingin digital photos. For example, an exceptional setis dated from the days when Poland and Warsaw were inmourning after the death of Pope John Paul II in April2005 and the entire city, especially places previouslyvisited by the Holy Father during his pilgrimages to hishomeland, were covered with flowers and candles. (Fig6).The photographic portraits ofVarsoviansThe Historical Museum of Warsaw can boast an impressivecollection of photographic pictures of inhabitants ofWarsaw. These photos represent the output of the majorphoto studios acting in the city since the second half ofthe nineteenth century.There are, among others, works of Karol Beyer,Grzegorz Sachowicz, Maksymilian Fajans, Jan Mieczkowski,Stanisław Bogacki, Anatoliusz Masłowski, fromthe studios Kostka & Mulert, ‘Rembrandt’, and ‘Leonard’.They fully characterize the evolution of this branch ofthe art of photography since the first static and meticulouslyposed portraits from the start of the 1850s, up tothe later shots, which are relaxed and have more psychologicalsketches.During the subsequent decades not only the approachto the model was changing, but also the entourageevolved. I am thinking about sets of props andpainted backgrounds which imitated – with varying success– the open air and interiors. Looking at these portraitswe can learn not only about the physical types ofour ancestors and changing fashion, but simultaneouslywe open the door into old masters’ studios, monitoringtheir methods of work.Equally interesting are group portraits of Varsovianstaken in various times and circumstances. Witnesses toevents set in the city, participants in various celebrations,meetings and balls, clerks of industrial plants, clergymen,artists and pupils are not only faces, gestures andposes captured in life, but also a mosaic of social, ethnic78

connecting collecting: kotańskaand professional groups, which excellently describe oldWarsaw. It is also a specific historical context, a recordingof the fleeting moment, evidence of presence in certaintogetherness.A special kind of compositions in the art of portrait isthe tableau. Prepared for special events (jubilees, the endof professional or social activity, name-days or birthdays),they connect elements of photography and painting,which symbolize the domain of the person to whomthey were dedicated. For example, among 25 portraits ina tableau from 1918 of graduates of the High CommercialSchool we can easily find the familiar figure of youngStefan Starzyński, later outstanding mayor of pre-warWarsaw, who was the commander-in-chief of the city’scivil defence in September 1939. (Fig 2).Very interesting in our collection are also unique albumswith or without photos. Some of them bound inleather, velvet, saffian or wood, with exquisite ornaments,are truly works of art. Especially meaningful are familyalbums with portraits of members of many Warsawgenerations, eminent as well as little known families. Ourancestors prepared them with great care, in an enviableand exemplary way.Apart from the images of relatives there are portraitsof outstanding personalities at a given period, views ofplaces with patriotic associations or reproductions of artworks. They constitute altogether exceptional evidenceof customs and tastes of past times. They stimulate reflectionon the flow of time, changing fashion and – despiteeverything – the continuity maintained between pastand present.We have albums formerly belonging to persons ofdifferent social and professional status, such as buildingcompany owner, musician and music teacher orpharmacist. While these sets of photos bear the trace ofindividual owners’ marks (because albums were usuallyadded to for years), so-called school albums fromthe formal point of view are very much alike. Simpleand modestly bound, they deliver a lot of informationabout the Warsaw educational system. They containportraits of the teaching staff and pupils, but unfortunatelyrarely views of classroom interiors.The albums presenting industrial companies and infrastructurefirms operating in Warsaw have other cognitivevalues. They exceed the dimension of simple documentationof dull activities, machines and devices.It took many years to shape our collection of postcards.They were very popular since their invention. It isa pity that we now keep in touch by phone or Internet,forgetting about postcards.ConclusionsIn the last few decades the interest in photographs as ahistorical source has been growing, which is proved bythe increasing number of visitors. Our collection is veryuseful for Warsaw researchers, university teachers, students,the movie industry, the press, publishing companies,and private people.Photographs illustrating the dramatic period ofWorld War II arouse special interest. Pictures showingthe city in almost total ruins are valuable for authors ofdocumentary films and movie designers, who want toreconstruct the realities of these years (for example I canmention a member of the team on the movie The Pianistby Roman Polański, who was looking for photos presentingthe demolished sculpture of Jesus Christ in front ofHoly Cross Church in Warsaw). Documentation of prewarWarsaw often formed the basis for reconstruction ofbuildings demolished during the war.As far as the collaboration with other museums andcultural institutions in our country and abroad is concerned,we make our collection available mainly for exhibitionson historical topics or devoted to history of theart of photography, and for scientific publications.In our own exhibitions we very often show materialfrom the Iconography Department, concerning specificmonuments, places, historical events or persons connectedwith Warsaw. Photo displays, based solely onphotos, are very popular with our guests and draw hugeaudiences. Photographs from our collection can also befound in scientific papers and catalogues as well as publicationsand albums published by our museum etc.We are aware that there are still many undiscoveredsources which could essentially expand our knowledgeof the past and which should be preserved for the next79

connecting collecting: kotańskagenerations. The museum’s activity cannot be overestimatedin this question. We spare no effort to supplementour temporary exhibitions of objects borrowed fromprivate owners to make them available to the public. Wealso attend many undertakings, focused on introducingthe amateurs to get to know the museum from theinside and to enable the visitors to have direct contactwith exhibits, to sensitize them to the historical value ofthe objects in their nearest surroundings and to persuadethem to collect mementoes of the past. One example isthe meetings during the Warsaw Science Festival, whenwe prepare small exhibits of objects seldom shown to thepublic, combined with speeches popularizing the historyof the art of photography.Our team from the Iconography Department takesgreat responsibility for preserving the rich collection inthe Historical Museum of Warsaw. At the same time all ofus are aware that we are privileged to have direct contactwith mementoes of the past. Our main aim is to share thisprivilege with the public, to help the visitors understandthat our collection is the core of knowledge, a kind oftreasury of memory and a common pass to the future.Image captionsFig 1. Woman in so-called dress of national mourning.Photo: Jan Mieczkowski, after 1861.Fig 2. An example of a tableau from the collection of theIconography Department of the Historical Museum of Warsaw.Copy: Ewald Pawlak, 2006.Fig 3. Krasiński Square with visible tents of the tsarist army.Photo: Karol Beyer, 1861.Fig 4. The Historical Museum of Warsaw at the Old MarketSquare. Photo: Ewald Pawlak, 2006.Fig 5. The Old Market Square in 1945 (the northern side –now the seat of the Historical Museum of Warsaw). Photo:Zofia Chomętowska, 1945.Fig 6. Warsaw during the mourning after the death of Pope JohnPaul II. Photo: Halina Niewiadomska, April 2005.80

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connecting collecting: ulrichA changing approach – a changing identity:Evaluating collection and collectingstrategies at the Norwegian TelecomMuseumThomas UlrichNorwegian Telecom MuseumAn effort to become more active collectors requiresa new focus on argumentation in favour ofdecisions. To a museum with an established viewof collecting and collections, a new approach canbe a challenge to its identity and mentality.Our museum has at this point arrived at a time forchanging perspectives on collections and collecting. Thisarticle conveys some experiences and thoughts from thisprocess. My role at the museum is to suggest new strategiesfor the future and to critically evaluate the collectionand give my opinion as to whether reducing storagespace is an option.The museum has come to the conclusion that the sizeof the collection is a problem and an obstacle to morepreferable projects, such as recordings of associated information,research and exhibits. One thing is that thenumber of artefacts is conceived as overwhelming and ahindrance to having the overview and the desired knowledgeof the collection. A main problem is that the rentalfees for the stores drain a large part of the budget.First, to get an impression of the collection, I havehad talks with the staff and guided tours in the stores onseveral occasions. As a first approach it was necessary toget an overview of what the collection contained. I foundthat the telecom history of Norway was very well representedregarding artefacts. All the generations of equipmentwere represented – in most cases in ample numbers.There were also collections within the collection.These were regional collections – collected locally – andlater moved to the central stores. Here we arrive at mysecond approach, namely how the collection happenedto be collected – the history of the collecting. This hascome to be the main focus in the evaluation.BackgroundThe museum registered its first item in 1989. The newlyestablished museum had an enormous task to put togethera collection. To undertake this, the museum employedtechnical staff from the National Telecom Company(Televerket). In this early stage the museum was a partof the Telecom Company, which then was in a phase ofprivatization and rationalization, shuffling its staff about.With great enthusiasm they attacked their task. Steadilythe collection grew and the stores got filled up, first one– then one more ...At the same time one strategy was to engage local enthusiastsin the regional districts. Many were retired personnelfrom the National Telecom Company, and theirtask was to collect the local collections mentioned above.In this phase the collecting depended on this local enthusiasmand the enthusiasm depended on the link to localand personal history. Later the museum had to rationalizeand relocate most of the collected items in centralstores. In this process a large part of the collection wasdeemed to be surplus and tons were put in containers82

connecting collecting: ulrichand dumped – often to the resentment of the energeticcollectors. Many were not happy their history was tornapart – or just as bad – taken away to the capital.Throughout much of the museum’s lifetime it hasbeen offered material from former local divisions of theTelecom Company. It turned out that employees had putthings aside over the years, considering their historicalvalue. For a long time this was accepted to a large extent.This was understandable as long as the museum wasin a phase of establishment. The goodwill and trust ofthese people were also important to the museum. It washowever, on the museum’s part, an aim to fill the gaps –maybe also a fear of missing something. I dare also say itwas in many cases collected with the complete collectionas an ideal.Selection principlesEven though a lot had already been done, in my opinionthere were possibilities to free even more storage space.My starting point was a scrutiny of the making of the collection.Here I found the main argument to move furtheron. As directions for collecting, the museum has definedcriteria for priority as follows: a local connection, productionin Norway, extensive use and educational value.As it turns out these directions have been formulated tooloosely. The museum’s field of interest and responsibilityhas been defined, but how to draw the line and make restrictionswithin these fields could have been formulatedmore clearly.A part of this story also involves all the non-professionalenthusiasts working for and helping the museum.Their perception of what a museum is and what collectionsare, and the museum’s dependency on what theyhad to offer, have in many ways shaped the collection. Iask whether the right questions have been asked aboutthe items. There is a huge difference between asking ‘Isthis item relevant for the collection?’ and asking ‘Whatcan this particular item do for the museum?’ Anotherquestion is whether the collectors actually have followedthe required criteria. As a result there is an overrepresentationof some items and some groups of items. Withthe history of the collection in mind, it has a somewhatarbitrary character. This is my chief objection regardingthe composition of the collection.Criteria for evaluationEvaluating the collection further, I operate with definedcriteria. The take-off question is about definition:DefinitionWhere to draw the line, what is on the fringe and what isoutside? The collection should reflect the defined goalsof the museum. If necessary, it can be useful to define thefield of the museum more strictly.RepresentativityWhat story is the artefact a part of, or better; what artefactscan represent the story? For example: How manymanually operated switchboards do we need to tell astory about manually operated switchboards in Norway?Glancing at the directions for collecting, we make surewe have representations of: boards customized for localuse, boards produced in Norway, types of boards we findhave been used extensively and types of boards we actuallyutilize in exhibits and education. It may be a questionof representing as opposed to the ideal of the completecollection.Associated informationBesides the mere facts adhered to the item, it is also aquestion of contextualization and references, which enhancesthe value of the items. This includes all recordsrelated to its history, such as interviews, research, manuals,pictures, relevant literature and so on. Everythingthat can provide for an understanding of the material isrelevant. A lack of contextual information can be an argumentfor disposal.ProvenanceIs the provenance satisfactory? Information regardingthe origin, custody and previous ownership is highly significantcontextualization. A shortage of such informationreduces the value of the material.83

connecting collecting: ulrichNumberIs there an overrepresentation of some items or groups ofitems? For instance, the Telecom Museum has 374 registeredmanually operated switchboards of various kinds.Get to know the collection before disposing of anything!SizeHow should we view the museum’s 1500 mobile phonesin comparison with 374 manually operated switchboards?Considering the use of limited resources, sizedoes count. (Fig 2)Educational valueDoes the item have qualities that make it a handy toolfor passing on knowledge to the public? Some items aremore applicable than others for this purpose. By experiencewe know that manually operated switchboards is agood example.Use and popularityDoes anything happen to the item or does it live its lifein the darkness of the stores? Some groups of artefactsare exposed to more light than others. It is a good idea tohave a reserve of these things. For instance, nineteenthcenturytelephones are quite popular. They are often usedin exhibits and are borrowed as props in movies etc.Additional qualitiesQualities like rareness, age, aesthetic and market valuemake some items stand out. If the material fails in all theformer evaluations, it still might have qualities that canjustify its presence in the collection.Summing upTaking on the delicate task of evaluating a collection withthe goal of reducing it considerably, and with the finalaim of freeing resources and storage space, a professionalapproach – grounded on museological ideals – can bevaluable as a start.Yet there are other considerations to take into account.The museum has a history and an identity. Themuseum and its staff have established ways of working.These ways are a part of forming the identity of the museum.To some extent the museum belongs to the peoplethat have shaped its practices. As mentioned, many aretechnical personnel recruited from the former NationalTelecom Company. Their professional, technologicalcompetence, most clearly, is a great invaluable asset tothe museum, together with knowledge about telecomhistory acquired in their work. The same story can betold about their nearness to the material and to the nearhistory of the Telecom Company. However, their waysof collecting were inspired by their enthusiasm and aninterest in the telecom history related to their own work,and not based on museological ideals. This article, on theother hand, deals with museological ideals, as expressedby the criteria for evaluation of the collection, in encounterand argument with the museum as it is - you may say‘the real-life factors’.Still, a large part of my work is taken up with arguingin favour of my view. In this process I ask for argumentsabout the role of the collections in both the present andthe future. What will be of interest for people in the futureis in general impossible to foresee. Our history willbe told later. By collecting, documenting and selectingwe can prepare a part of this history based on our ownunderstanding and preferences. Future interpretation ofour actions, though, is not in our hands. But, in my opinion,a fair question to ask is whether the collection can beunderstood by someone from outside the museum andwithout the insight of the specialist. To prepare for betterunderstanding is about more than a collection of itemsand a presentation of a minimum of facts about them.It is also about why we do what we do and why we doit in this particular way. The museum’s large number of‘grey boxes’ containing analogue or digital technology,mostly used in the process of transmitting dialogues inone way or another, is material only experienced specialistscan understand instantly. To most of us the functionsare hidden in the electronics. How meaningful is it forinstance to know something is a: ‘Measuring instrument;FL-4B/m0-2 for relay adjustment?’ (Fig 1)The single item should be clearly embedded in boththe larger and the smaller histories. It should be thoroughlycontextualized. Why the item was important84

connecting collecting: ulrichat some level to some people at some time should beconveyed in an easily understandable matter. At thesame time it shouldn’t rule out recording and impartingknowledge that is interesting for the specialist or for personswith prior knowledge.Not least of all, contextualization is about the reasonswhy the item was selected to be transformed intoa museum item, to serve a purpose so different from itsinitial one. In most cases the artefact has lost its intentionalfunction forever. In many cases these artefacts canno longer be experienced in our daily life. We are simplylosing the connection. Randomly, a museum decides todo something about it. That means a new purpose has tobe provided. To choose an understanding of the material(not necessarily the correct understanding) that, accordingto arguments produced at the museum, make thematerial interesting can turn out to be a good idea. ThisI believe will generate very important contextual informationthat unfortunately often is missing. If it is madeobvious why the material exists in the collections, understandingit and evaluating it will be a lot easier later on.In what ways can a collection of 374 manually operatedswitchboards be understood? An argument in defenceof this collection is that ‘they are all unique’. A counterquestionis, how can it be understood that they are all sounique? Is uniqueness something inherent or do we haveto ascribe it? If arguments defining the uniqueness aregood and convincing, maybe an answer to the problem‘374 manually operated switchboards’ is – why not? Inthe end this can be conceived as the collector’s attitudein conflict with a demand for a clearer purpose that thecollected material may serve, for instance in research,education and in exhibits.A purpose has implications. It is hard to imagine apurpose without interpretation. When a material is underscrutiny, the purposes of the museum itself are raised.If an important purpose for the museum is to deliver interpretationsof material in a way that can provide thepublic with ways to understand their surroundings betterand/or understand connections between the past andthe present, it is clear that the museum is a producer ofmessages. The messages are connected with purpose andinterpretation! Collectors can be aware of this already inthe process of collecting and registration. This underlinesthe importance of collecting information associated withthe object, since interpretation is close to impossible withonly an item as a source. To ensure that material does notend up as curiosities in the stores, the museum must takean active approach and make sure that an understandingof the material goes side by side with the items.Final wordsWhat about future interests? The one who enters thestore, or the database on the Internet one bright morningsome time ahead and exclaims, ‘Behold you reallykept them all!’ is rather illusionary. Can we really expectand prepare for this? On the other hand, can some valueof the uniqueness come into play? Might we in the nearfuture experience that what we discarded is conceivedas something close to archaeological artefacts? For example,did we just recycle a genuine and perfect pieceof ancient Greek pottery? Keep in mind the importanceof telecommunication in modernity – what it means topower and politics, how it has been part of everythinggoing on in society, how it is a symbol of an age.However, to be an active collector means, in my opinion,that the collector has a clearly defined purpose forwhy he chose to collect exactly what he is collecting.A new approach has many implications for theNorwegian Telecom Museum. For instance, a need anda willingness to turn the focus from collecting objects torecording contextual information must follow. In this regardwe have for some time implemented the strategy ofgenerally collecting in connection with projects. For us atthe Norwegian Telecom Museum, as a collective entity,this implies a shift in identity and a changing mentalityabout collections and collecting.Image captionsFig 1. TELE ASK-162Fig 2. A manually operated switchboard made in Norway byElectrisk Bureau: TELE T-31.85

connecting collecting: ernstellWho is the keeper?Collecting and storing in the NationalSwedish Museums of Military HistoryEva-Sofi ErnstellThe Army Museum, StockholmThis article is about how to make collectinginto an integral part of museum work of today.I think the connection should start within theinstitution itself, as we all are keepers of museumitems. First of all: make an inventory andidentify your UFOs, find keywords – connectthe collecting with the collection and people outsidethe museum.The Army Museum in Stockholm does collect contemporaryitems. At this very moment we are collecting a warheadfrom the former Soviet Union. This warhead couldhave been loaded with power, bigger than the Hiroshimabomb. It could have had Stockholm as the target and itcould have destroyed the entire area within a radius of100 kilometres. One of our missions is to focus on theCold War. This is an object that holds a lot of Cold Wartension – even though the missile was never launched.The warhead symbolizes, among other things, fear. Fearcan be visualized in an object like this, and no one passesby such an exhibit without being affected. A film produceris making a documentary film about this warhead,and in the film the so-called executor, who is still alive, isbeing interviewed and telling us what his mission was incase this missile was fired.A museum item is a society’smemoryThis raises many questions. What should we collect?Should we collect items that make us remember episodesfrom history that never happened? And should we collectitems that were used by foreign armed forces? To methe answer is yes, we should. We must keep in mind ideasfrom previous periods in history, even though they werenever realized. This item is not elegant or expensive butcarries a variety of feelings. It makes us ask questions,it makes us think and reflect. We don’t need every suchitem, but this piece might be enough to keep the ColdWar in mind. Items are a kind of souvenirs, they help usto remember. The museum staff, the keepers, are souvenirhunters whose most important issue is to collect theright one.The twentieth century, especially after the SecondWorld War, was a time of uprooting. The National SwedishMuseums of Military History have a very big collection.Big in the sense of huge objects, such as airplanes andtanks, but also big meaning a large number of objects.The collection consists of everything a society needs.Places to live in, things to wear, systems for cleaning waterand preparing food, machines and technical equipmentfor the infrastructure, for example building bridges,and information technology and communication.The National Swedish Museums of Military Historyhave two main arenas, the Army Museum in Stockholm87

connecting collecting: ernstelland the Air Force Museum in Linköping. Due to changesin the Ministry of Defence from 2008 we are also a centrefor many local military museums in Sweden and aresupposed to take charge of the collecting of such items.We support exhibitions all over the country with loanson a long-term basis. Since the Armed Forces are beingreorganized and regiments and all kinds of militaryequipment are not needed militarily, we are collectingcontemporary things at a very high speed at the moment.We must decide very quickly what to keep or it will bedestroyed forever. We have therefore created a collectingcommittee.The collecting committeeThis is a committee dealing with collecting issues as wellas sorting-out issues, as both these issues are the questionsruling what to have in the museum collection. I runthe collecting committee consisting of one president, onesecretary, one staff member from the Army Museum,one from the Air Force Museum, one from the ArmedForces and one from Local Museums. We represent differentsexes and ages, with three women and three menbetween the ages of 25 and 65 on this committee. We alsocollaborate with other museum professionals from ourown staff, such as conservators and historians and peoplefrom the army and air force, colleagues from othermuseums, private collectors, and various specialists. Westrictly follow the ICOM code of ethics as we sort outitems.The collecting committee also put objects on longtermloan. Our aim is to have most of our items on displayor on loan and to minimize our storage space. Whatwe do here is in fact connecting collecting, again. We collaboratewith other local museums; we collect ‘objects ofnational importance’ and give them high status. Objectsthat have a local value are not part of our collecting fieldand we give such objects to the local museum. The choiceis made by the collecting committee and the final decisionwhether or not the item should become a museumpiece is made by our director general.To connect our collecting there must be a broad understandingof the collection that we already have. Theissue in the heading – ‘who is the keeper?’– is also partof my discussion, as this is of great importance to thecollections and the collecting. To me the collecting, registering,storing, and caring should be done by the samestaff member, or by staff members in close collaborationwith each other. There are many people who care aboutcollecting. For example, there are specialists in differentcategories such as car specialists or sword specialists whohave the idea that a museum should collect one of a kindwithout any reflection on its importance in society. Somepeople believe that all objects in a museum are economicallyvaluable, and that ‘ordinary things’ have no right tooccupy expensive space in museums.Connect collectingMy most important contribution to the conferencetheme ‘connecting collecting’ is this: You must find outwhat you have, before you start to collect. Take controlover the collections – get rid of unidentified objects inthe collections, make sure the register works and makesure all items are included. I don’t mean that we shouldthrow items away, but register them and find out whatthey are. Over and over again I have asked the questionto museum colleagues: ‘How many items do you have inyour museum?’ The answer is always the same: ‘Well, it alldepends on how you count.’ This answer is too vague. Wemust be able to answer the question properly. Maybe itis more convenient to collect and register new items thanto find out what’s in storage. I would say: Connect thecollecting with the collection. 1In the Army Museum we started to take an inventoryat high speed, whereby all museum objects were registeredwith key words, short facts, and photograph. Theaverage speed was two hundred items a day, as the purposewas to get a quick overview. Fifteen persons workedtogether – moved and controlled and checked 60,000items at a rate of 4,000 items each month. The registrationincluding all photographs will be published on the1 At the conference Connecting Collecting I showed a film about how theArmy Museum managed to take control over its collection. The filmcan be ordered by e-mail from eva-sofi.ernstell@armemuseum.se.88

connecting collecting: ernstellweb during 2008. This work was possible to accomplishthanks to extra money within the framework of the nationalAccess project (with the aim of supporting the workof preserving and conserving collections, artefacts andarchival material in the whole field of culture and makingthem accessible) but also through very strict work.We only registered what was absolutely needed. If we hadadded one minute extra to each object the project wouldhave needed an extra eight months in the end.An international museum networkfor collecting issuesThe warhead mentioned earlier is a good example ofcontemporary collecting. Many of our items are madeout of fear for an intruding enemy. If we search for commondenominators for all our items – apart from the onethat we collect items that illustrate the military culturalheritage – fear could be the connecting word in our collection.Perhaps we can find concepts to use as keywordsor filter when we collect instead of collecting and classifyinga specific category.Let us say that fear plays an important role when oneorganizes the armed forces in a country. (Perhaps fearplays an important role in society all the time; we havefear of illness, fear of death, fear of being unlucky etc) Outof the keyword fear we can collect war heads from theSoviet Union or items from the Swedish armed forces,and we don’t necessarily need one of each kind. We needexamples to help us remember. One key to collecting today’sitems can be to let them pass through the ‘gate offear’ and to use this gate as a collecting filter. If it passes,it is an item for our museum. Finding such keywordswould be of great help, and, in my opinion, a task for thenew international network on collecting issues.Image captionThe recently collected warhead. Photo: The Army Museum.89

connecting collecting: marshallPutting collections to work. Some strategiesfrom the first decade of the Irish Museum ofModern ArtCatherine MarshallArts Council of IrelandThe debate within museums about ownership ofcollections goes on. Do we collect so that a handfulof professionals can glean inordinate amountsof specialist knowledge from the objects in theMuseum’s holdings or do we collect, with publicmoney for the benefit of the many publics that enterthe building daily? Should we collect at all anymoresince the largest part of the collection in mostmuseums spends most of its time in storage? 1When it was established in 1991 the Irish Museum ofModern Art pondered these questions very seriously beforedeciding that the purpose of a museum collection wasto keep important works in the public domain. This meansto collect not just to own and store artworks for some unforeseenfuture when they can emerge and take their placeamong the firmament of other great museum objects. Itmeans collecting to show, rather than to own, and to showthe work in a very active way. The collection was also seenas a part of a process to interrogate the whole concept ofthe museum and the ideology of collecting. As a postmodernMuseum that belongs more in the tradition of theforum rather than the hierarchical model of the temple ofhigh art, this meant a deliberate policy of also collecting1 These and other questions were addressed at the conferenceConnecting Collecting, Nordiska Museet, Sweden, November 15-16,2007, by Elizabeth Merritt in her keynote address, ‘Beyond theCabinet of Curiosities: Towards a Modern Rationale of Collecting’.artwork that is not automatically part of the mainstreamculture for Museum collections. It was this fundamentalapproach that led IMMA to take on long-term loan theMusgrave Kinley Collection of Outsider Art in 1998 andto show it alongside more mainstream cultural icons. Thatsame approach led IMMA to acquire a number of artworksarising from collaborative projects between artistsand members of community groups.Within that first decade IMMA embarked on a numberof strategies and individual projects that opened the wayto a very active engagement with the collection for a widecross section of the museum’s publics, to keep the collectionin use and to help to attract new audiences.The role of collections in postmodernmuseumsIt is important to contextualise the collection at IMMA atthe outset. The museum opened its doors in May 1991,becoming the first national institution in Ireland with responsibilityfor the display and collection of Modern andContemporary art. There was no inherited collection andthe budget for acquisitions was extremely small by internationalstandards in the early years. Strategically the newmuseum needed to establish itself nationally and internationallyas quickly as possible – to hit the ground running– in the words of founding director, Declan McGonagle.A major plank in this process was the emphasis on a high91

connecting collecting: marshallquality exhibition programme, including but not led by,rotating displays of work from the emerging collection,developing simultaneously through modest purchases,donations and long term loans.The Museum’s mission to foster excellence and inclusivenessin relation to contemporary art was implementedfrom day one through the exhibition and collectionpolicies and especially by an education andcommunity programme, headed up by a senior curator,with the power to curate and participate in the exhibitionprogramme as an equal player. The initial emphasisof the education programme at IMMA was on practicerather than on history and theory. This was made visibleby an integrated workshop programme that is inclusiveof non-museum specialists/visitors, aimed at creatingopportunities for artists and the public to work in collaborationand to create artworks. The education programmeworks with a cross section of society includingfamilies, schools, older people and specialist communitygroups, includes the on-site artist’s residency programmeand links to well-informed mediators in the galleries inplace of more traditional museum attendants.As far as showing the collection was concerned, thefounding Board and Director held firmly to the view thatif an artwork was not on display at the museum it should,whenever possible, be on show elsewhere, rather thanconsigned to storage. In 1995 the museum announced itsintention to establish a National Programme to dispersethe assets of the museum throughout Ireland. While themost obvious asset was the growing collection, therewere also requests for a sharing of the skills and expertiseheld within the museum. A number of projects arisingfrom this were to prove central to the use of the collectionand to provide a platform for combined education andcollection projects in various places and with differentcommunities all over the country.The IMMA National Programme began informally in1995 when a curator was appointed to look after the collection.The Museum held very strongly to the view thatthe National Programme should not become a meansto colonise the country with offsets of IMMA. Insteadthe intention was to promote a relationship between theregions and the museum and to create a sense of publicownership of the collection. The Head of Collectionsinvited arts officers from all over Ireland to a meeting tostate their needs in relation to contemporary art and tosee how they and the institution could work together fortheir mutual benefit. In 1996 the first of a series of exhibitions,developed as a result of this partnership process,was put in place and this was followed by the appointmentof an Assistant Curator to co-ordinate the NationalProgramme. Within two years the National Programmewas putting together approximately 20 exhibitions a year,each one tailor made to suit the specific requirements oflocal arts centres and this process continues now with aslightly reduced number of exhibitions but with an enhancededucation component.One of the first requests to come in under the NationalProgramme was an invitation to the Head of Collectionsto mentor a project with a group of young teenagers(ranging in age from 13 -17) to curate an exhibition inWaterford, in the south of Ireland, from the collectionof a major Irish banking company, Allied Irish Banks.The energy and initiative that came out of that group andtheir iconoclastic exhibition Blah! Blah! Blah! 2 led directlyto a similar scheme at the Irish Museum of ModernArt in 1997/8 - the touring exhibition Somebodies. 3 Thistime, eight teenagers from different parts of Ireland cametogether to form the IMMA Young Curators and theyworked closely with the Curator and staff in the collectiondepartment, and with support from the Garter LaneArts Centre, Waterford, to curate their own exhibitionfrom the national collection. Three of the Young Curatorscame from the Blah! Blah! Blah! project in Waterford butPromoting ownership andengagement with the collection2 Blah! Blah! Blah!, City Hall, Waterford, 1997 was the brain child ofMary McAuliffe, Arts Officer, Waterford, Catherine Marshall, IMMAand Annette Clancy, Garter Lane Arts Centre, Waterford.3 Somebodies, IMMA, Garter Lane, Waterford, Cavan County Museum,July 1999 to January 2000. It was curated by Marc Corrigan, BarryGavin, Lisa Hannigan, Andrew McLoughlin,Catriona Moore, MargotPhelan, Peter Symes, Susan Williams and mentored by CatherineMarshall.92

connecting collecting: marshallothers came through as a result of school work placementsin the museum’s collection department.Developing a shared curatorialprocessThe teenagers came from different parts of Ireland, fromWaterford, Dublin, Cavan and Meath, and the initialmeetings were as much about getting to know each otheras getting to know the collection. Over a period of nearlya year, involving collective train journeys, visits to exhibitionsand away from home meetings either in IMMA or atGarter Lane they formed a tight and friendly group, witha growing knowledge of the IMMA collection and a disturbinglyhonest eye for its strengths and shortcomings.The group shortlisted and selected artworks, attendedhanging and art-handling sessions at the Museum, observedexhibition installations, and talked their way towardsa common theme that still allowed for the widestvariations in individual choice. They learned to matchthe selected artworks to the exhibition space or to findeffective alternatives, to lay out the work in the space andfinally, and with steadily increasing confidence, decidedon the kind of signage and imagery they wanted to promotetheir show. They met with a designer and workedout an idea that perfectly expressed their sense of identity,for the invitations, poster and a fold-out exhibitionguide. They researched and wrote the guide and the captionsfor each artwork and finally, chose the artist, NigelRolfe, to open their exhibition. The exhibition was a greatsuccess at IMMA, with an opening attended by several ofthe Irish artists whose work was shown, and considerablemedia coverage, all of which was handled comfortably bythe group members, themselves.One of the immediate outcomes of the YoungCurators projects for the Museum was that it providedan immediate and effective model for a similar projectCome to the Edge 4 with older people from a local active re-4 Come to the Edge, IMMA, September 1999 to March 2000, curated bythe St Michael’s Parish Active Retirement Art Group, mentored byAnn Davoren and Catherine Marshall, IMMA.tirement group, the St Michael’s Parish Active RetirementArt Group, Inchicore Co Dublin. Just as the young peoplehad met with and talked the older people throughtheir experience of curating at IMMA, the St Michael’sParish group mediated their exhibition for peer groupsand the general public. Somebodies went on tour throughout1999, as part of the Museum’s National Programme,to Waterford, Cavan and Co. Meath with those of thegroup who lived in those areas mediating it as it travelled.The St Michael’s Active Retirement Group travelled theirexperience and their new sense of ownership of the museumcollection to other groups of older people aroundthe country under the auspices of the museum’s educationand community department. They repeated this internationallywhen they participated in a trans Europeanlearning partnership under the Socrates scheme withpartners from Stockholm, Vienna, Lisbon and London.The expansion of the processThe Museum’s National Programme looked to the successfulmodel of the Young Curators show as a paradigmfor future programming. The offspring of Somebodies includeStitches and Ditches, a cross-border project betweenthe National Programme and women’s groups in Cavanand Fermanagh, Smidiríní 5 , an excellent project with studentsfrom a second level school in Dingle, a Gaelicspeakingtown on the extreme western seaboard, to namesome of the better publicised examples. Hearth, an exhibitionon the theme of Home in 2006/7, was a similar curatorialinitiative, developed in conjunction with FocusIreland and the IMMA’s Collection and Education andCommunity Departments. 65 Smidiríní, Feile na Bealtaine, Dingle, Co. Kerry, May 2002,curatedby Transition year students from Meanscoil na Toirbirte, Dingle,mentored by Johanne Mullan, IMMA. Smidiríní will be shown againby Udaras na Galetachta as part of its 10 th anniversary celebrationsin November 2008.6 Hearth, an Exhibition on the theme of Home from the IMMACollection, curated by Clients of Focus Ireland and HelenO’Donoghue and Catherine Marshall, IMMA at IMMA, November2006-May 2007. Focus Ireland is one of the leading non-profit agenciesin Ireland working with people who are out-of-home. Foundedby Sr Stanislaus Kennedy in 1985, Focus Ireland has, as a result of itsresearch and policy analysis both proposed solutions and provided93

connecting collecting: marshallOf course the collection philosophy and the curatorialpractices outlined above come with a cost. It is extremelylabour intensive to constantly rotate displaysand to take artwork out around the country on a regularbasis. It requires significant technical support and contextualinformation has to be constantly re-consideredand re-written for the specific exhibitions and locations.It is also true that the greater movement of artwork putsgreater pressure on the artworks themselves, and thismust be carefully explored by curators and conservatorsbefore agreement is given to travel the work, but the benefitsof responsible sharing of collections far outweighthese challenges.The impactThe positive outcomes of the IMMA National Programmeand the emphasis on community based curatorialprojects such as Somebodies and Smidiríní are too greatto encapsulate in detail but can be briefly listed. TheNational Programme has established the name of theIrish Museum of Modern Art throughout the lengthand breadth of Ireland, going into schools, hospitals,festivals, community halls and art centres. It quicklyrevealed a need for greater professional standards at alllevels of provision for exhibiting, from basic art-handlingto mediation and copyright clearance procedures. TheNational Programme joined with the Institute for theConservation of Historic and Artistic Works in Irelandto put on occasional short courses in aspects of collectioncare and management to fill this need and there isnow visible improvement in awareness of the needs ofthe art object on a national level. Most of all because theprocess requires considerable discussion with the localcommunities to agree what kind of material is suitable ordesirable for them, there is far greater active engagementwith and appreciation of contemporary and modern artall over the country, in rural and maritime as well as urbansituations. The range of alternative contexts that theNational Programme offers for artworks often brings outsurprising qualities in the work, even for the artists themselves.More interestingly, seeing a work of contemporaryart in a familiar community context transforms thatcontext for the viewers while allowing them to assess theartwork on their terms without the often-intimidatingexperience of the white cube museum. There is an internationaldimension too. An example of this is H20 7 inwhich the sustained backing of the museum’s NationalProgramme over a period of years has given the confidenceto artists working in the Dingle area to developa project uniting artists from marginal contexts aroundEurope, from Norway, and Poland as well as Ireland.The curatorial projects have empowered those whoparticipated in them to deal with the Museum as comfortablyif it were their local post office and to think aboutcontemporary art with considerable critical confidence.In the most in-depth of these projects, e g Somebodies,the teenagers offer visible testimony to the benefits to begained from acquiring the language, the handling skillsof meeting with artists and museum staff and knowingthe museum from the inside. Ultimately and when repeatedover time, these experiments will help to developthe critical audiences that we all need to sustain museumsin the future. Of the eight people who took part inthe Somebodies exhibition, six are still directly engaged inthe arts ten years later while the remaining two continueto be interested.From having no collection at all at IMMA in 1991there is considerable anecdotal evidence to suggest thatby 2001 there was not only a substantial collection but agrowing sense of national ownership of it.Image captionSomebodies, fold-out catalogue with text on reverse, writtenand designed by the Young Curators.practical responses (in the form of housing and services for peoplewho are homeless).7 H2O, Féile na Bealtaine, Dingle, May 2006, Practise based symposiumorganised by Andrew Duggan, Kate Buckley, Lisbeth Mulcahy,Dingle and Johanne Mullan, IMMA.94

connecting collecting: baveystockRelevance and representation.The state of contemporary collectingin the UK.Zelda BaveystockInternational Centre for Cultural & Heritage Studies (ICCHS), Newcastle UniversityThis paper questions what the purpose of contemporarycollecting in history museums is byexamining a range of current methodologies. Itargues that the true value of community-led collectingprojects is in the relationships they forgebetween individuals and museums. It also suggeststhat the ongoing quest for wider representationin collections could be ameliorated with agreater degree of partnership working and collectionssharing amongst social history museums.Outside of the ongoing discussions of the importance ofcontemporary collecting amongst social history curators,there has been a feeling for a number of years thatcollecting has become a low priority activity in museumsin the UK. Perversely this may be partially the result ofa ten year boom in the sector: the combination of newfunds from the Heritage Lottery Fund since 1994 and abroadly pro-arts government in the form of New Laboursince 1997 has seen increased investment in museums,but principally in terms of improving access and engagementwith existing collections through new buildings,new displays, and extensive new learning, outreach anddigitisation programmes. While undoubtedly providingenormous benefits for the sector as a whole, some havefelt that this has been to the detriment of old-fashionedcuratorial concerns: scholarship, research and collectingare all perceived to be in decline (Art Fund 2006; DCMS2005, 2006; Museums Association 2005). Only in thelast couple of years has the pendulum started to swingonce more back in the direction of advocacy for collections.This swing has been principally spearheaded by theMuseum Association’s influential 2005 report, Collectionsfor the Future, followed up in 2007 with a second reporton Making Collections Effective. Collections for the Future twoyears on. 1The dynamic collectionCollections for the Future aimed to show how museums couldmake better use of their collections without shifting thefocus away from the needs of museum users. It presentedthe notion of the ‘dynamic collection’ which lies at theheart of all museum operations. The dynamic collectionis conceptualised almost as a living entity, needing careand attention to remain viable. This care revolves arounda tri-partite process: 1) growth through collecting; 2) engagementwith audiences through displays, loans andlearning programmes; and 3) disposal of those parts ofthe collection which have become redundant or could bebetter used in other museums or public bodies. The collectionthat is fixed or static (or undynamic) might thus1 The Museums Association is an independent membership body,representing the interests of museums professionals and institutions.Amongst its activities, it lobbies government on behalf of museumsand galleries in the UK.96

connecting collecting: baveystockbe perceived to be moribund, unhealthy and ultimatelyunviable. The report was broadly welcomed by those involvedin collecting professionally, as it recognised thatcontinued development of collections is an essentialactivity, rather than one, which is fundamentally unsustainable.This paper concentrates on the first two aspectsof the dynamic collection: growth and engagement.Underpinning much of the thinking behind boththe collecting and engagement part of the process is thecritical idea that a collection must be made relevant tocontemporary audiences. But what does relevance in acollection actually mean? Although it is understood thatthere are rich and varied ways in which visitors can personallyrespond to material culture in museum settings,one idea which has firmly taken hold is that a relevantcollection is a representative collection; that to be interestedin a museum display you must in some way be ableto see yourself or your life reflected in it, or connectedto it. Some of this thinking has been developed frombroader museological debates about the representationand participation of minority groups in museums. It issupported by research into encouraging ethnic minorityparticipation in museums: the influential report Holdingup the Mirror, for example, took the metaphor of the museumreflecting back the life of it users as its title (HelenDennison Associates 2003). The idea is further supportedby research into non-visitors to museums, whichstates that the reason some people don’t go is becausethere is nothing there for them. But ‘there’s nothing therefor me’ is often taken to mean ‘there’s nothing there aboutme’ or ‘there’s nobody there like me’, leading writers suchas Graham Black to comment that:The attitude among communities that a museum ‘doesn’trelate to me’ will only fully disappear when those communitiesare not only welcomed into the museum but also properlyrepresented in it - in the collections, in the histories presented,in the programming, in the development of multiple perspectiveswithin exhibitions, and in the staff. (Black 2005:59)In this way relevance and representation are thusseen to be co-joined and inseparable, at times almostsynonymous.Targeting the under-representedOne approach of contemporary collecting which hasdeveloped is to target those people or stories perceivedto be under-represented in both existing collections andexisting audiences. As illustrated in this publication byKylea Little’s paper, these projects typically work witha small number of people from a community group tohelp them identify what objects they think should be inthe museum (Little 2008). This approach results froman understanding of how older collections have beenformed: by donation or purchase from archetypal white,educated and essentially middle class museum curatorsor museum visitors. The ongoing reliance on donationfrom those who understand the museum merely worksto perpetuate the museum’s unwritten codes (or put anotherway, confident museum visitors see a particularhistory interpreted by the museum in a particular way,and then offer donations of very similar material in thebelief that this is what the museum is interested in, andwhat it ‘should’ be displaying).In response to this a contemporary collecting methodologyhas been developed by numerous museums,which is both more proactive and more focussed. It involvesgoing out of the museum to seek targeted involvementfrom those who have previously had no thoughtof what should be kept in the museum’s collections.Critically, it is the participants of these projects who decidewhat should be collected, and not the curators oroutreach workers. Such projects have multiple objectives:they seek to collect material for the future, certainly, butthey also aim to build relationships with people, givingcurrent audiences a voice or a means of self-expression.In working with the museum, they seek to build up culturalcapital by demystifying what the museum is aboutand why it collects the material it does; in other words,to make the institution relevant to people’s lives as well ashaving the contents reflect them.It is questionable in these types of projects as towhich is the more important act in making the museumrelevant – the gathering of material or the relationshipwith the project participant – but limited research suggeststhat it is the latter that counts as much if not more97

connecting collecting: baveystockthan the former. For example, some participants involvedin Tyne and Wear Museums’ Making History project, whichran from 1999-2001, said that they felt a greater sense ofownership and control over the collections by the endof the project (Tyne and Wear Museums 2001). But inlonger-term research and evaluation, carried out threeto four years after the project ended, participants additionallyremembered and valued the social occasions theproject afforded, the opportunities to learn somethingnew, and the sharing of their experiences with projectstaff and other participants (Newman & McLean 2004;AEA 2005). Looking back, it was the process that participantsvalued as much as the idea that parts of their lifehad been memorialised in a museum. Conversely, whenprojects are less successful, as documented by LaurellaRinçon in her examination of the Voices from the Hornof Africa exhibition at the Museum of World Culturesin Gothenburg, it is because the relationship with themuseum and its staff has not developed sufficiently.Participants in this project remained suspicious of themuseum’s motives and felt ‘ethnologised’ rather thanincluded. As a result, they were unwilling to hand overcopyright in the materials generated from the project tothe museum for future use (Rinçon, 2005).But if the importance of these projects lies in the personalrelationships forged with the museum, a questionis therefore raised as to what is the value of the collectionsformed? Can they genuinely be said to producecollections which are any more representative of, or relevantto, society at large than the older methodologies?As already hinted at, much project funding is aimed atincreasing audiences or increasing audience engagement,thus slanting projects towards audiences perceivedto be hard-to-reach, potentially socially excluded,or under-represented. This has led to an important spateof projects documenting ‘lesser known’ (or ‘hidden’) histories,particularly those of ethnic minorities in the UK,and more recently around disability and lesbian and gaysexuality. These are indeed areas which were poorly coveredin many history collections, and the projects havemade a valuable contribution to addressing gaps in ourunderstanding. However, despite their historical value,there is no sense that together these projects add up toa fully ‘representative’ collection, merely a more diversecollection.Traditional methodologiesAs project funding is rarely available for proactive collectingapproaches with more traditional audiences, curatorsare thus still forced to rely on older methodologiesof collecting to ‘round out’ collections. These methodologiesare typically reactive and unplanned – either respondingto a chance donor, or to the closure/demolitionof local industries and buildings, or to chance opportunitieson the open market. Often, both methodologiesco-exist within the one institution at the same time. Thuswhilst the Museum of Liverpool is proactively engagingdiverse audiences in its project 800 Lives, collecting oralhistories of contemporary Liverpudlians, it also seeksout significant social history items for purchase. For example,in 2005 the museum obtained grant funding tobuy Beatles memorabilia at auction (National MuseumsLiverpool 2005, 2007). Similarly, Birmingham Museumand Art Gallery sought audience involvement in collectingfor its Millenibrum project 2 [sic], but also continuedcuratorially-driven collecting to mark the demolitionand redevelopment of the central market area known asthe Bull Ring.What this means is that history collecting in the UKremains a patchwork quilt of planned projects and opportunism,loosely governed by broad-based acquisitionspolicies. While it is hardly new or original to suggestthat ‘total’ collecting is an impossibility, history curatorsnevertheless still appear to aspire to cover all areas of lifeat all times in their museum’s collections. This is reinforcedby the rhetoric about relevance and representation,which suggests that a collection which documentsthings ‘as they really were’ in all its richness and varietyis the ultimate goal. Few acquisition policies limit themselvesto a single coherent story, meaning that it is alwayschallenging to say ‘no’ to appealing opportunities as2 Millenibrum was a collecting project undertaken at the turn of themillennium. Like Making History, it targeted and worked with underrepresentedcommunity groups to encourage donations to theMuseum’s history collections.98

connecting collecting: baveystockthey arise, particularly if they appear to plug a gap in anarea previously uncollected. Overall, the spirit of muchcontemporary collecting is still frequently focussed ondocumenting some aspect of life for potential future use,rather than concentrating on finding innovative ways ofworking with the new collections formed.One possible solution to the conundrum of widerrepresentation through collecting might lie in a greaterdegree of co-operation and communication amongstmuseums. Collections for the Future has promoted just suchan approach, and in the last two years a number of subjectspecialist networks (SSNs) have formed or reinvigorated.Much of the work of these networks has been intrying to understand better what museums collectivelyhave or have not in their collections. Whilst there is aSSN for urban contemporary collecting, it does not havethe reach of Samdok in terms of co-ordinating activity.However, there are a large number of SSNs, whichfocus on one theme only, such as maritime history orrural history, or even on one type of material collection,such as cartoons, or musical instruments. It may bein the future that SSNs offer a solution to the concernsover adequate representation by ensuring that a goodspread of histories are recorded somewhere rather thaneverywhere – the concept of the Distributed NationalCollection. In this regard, the Rural Museums Networkhas been leading the field. A network of 55 museums, ithas conducted detailed research on the distribution ofsingle types of objects such as combine harvesters andtractors across its partner museums, with a view that abetter understanding of existing collections may informthe decision-making process for collecting in the future(Rural Museums Network 2007).As a final point, all of the methodologies I have discussedare based on the assumption that what we need tocollect and document are objects and stories about people’slives; whether that be representative of their workinglife, domestic life, community life, or something aboutsome aspect of their personal identity, such as disabilityor sexuality. We understand that all of these things contributeto our understanding of the history of a particulartime or place. However, there is one final strand of collectingwhich is increasingly popular which tries to wrestlewith the knotty problem of how our relationships withmaterial culture are unique and personal. An acceptanceof constructivist thinking – which recognises that eachvisitor constructs his or her own meanings to a museumvisit, even down to responses to an individual object –has led to attempts to collect these personal meanings orindividual interpretations to objects, including responseswhich may be creative, for example, through poetry orsong. These projects take the idea of personal relevancethrough representation to its logical extreme, by concentratingsolely on the individual response. Thus theVictoria & Albert Museum invested huge resources fromCulture Online on the Every Object Tells a Story project,in which people nominated objects and recorded theirthoughts and feelings about them (www.everyobject.net). On a much smaller scale, but in a similar vein, isDurham’s recent Museum of My Life exhibition, which wasbilled in its marketing literature as ‘an exhibition of thepersonal heritages of ordinary people...which depicts thestories of individual lives and shows what makes themextraordinary’. These projects are interesting for chartingthe elusive and often tangential ways in which visitors reallyreact to objects and museums. If anything, they showthat our understanding of what is relevant to a personis much more complex than a straightforward reflectionof a life or demographic category. But I would suggestthat in terms of contemporary history collecting theseprojects are going in the wrong direction. By concentratingsolely on the individual and extraordinary, theaudience is left with precious little sense of the broadercontext, or the collective history from which a personalsense of identity may be forged (either in agreement withor in opposition to the collective). While the process ofworking may have been both meaningful and fulfillingfor the project participants, the more general visitor isleft with nothing more substantial to grapple with thana museum of multiple lives. These projects have limitedvalue as they stand in building the historical record. Ifthey wished to be used as a tool for collecting as well asa means of audience engagement, then much more workwould need to be done in documenting fuller histories ofthe objects in question to place them in broader historicalcontexts.99

connecting collecting: baveystockConclusionIn conclusion there has been much exciting work goingon in the UK around collecting in the recent years, but itis still disparate and broadly unconnected. More researchneeds to be done to understand what the value of thiswork is, to understand the range of material that is beingcollected across different museums, and the impact ithas on both donors and wider audiences. The notion ofa representative collection requires further interrogationand definition, in recognition of the practical impossibilityof preserving the complexity of society past andpresent in any one place. While the museum continues tobe motivated primarily by the need to create a collection,which reflects everyone’s lives, it may become too blinkeredin its appreciation of relevance. Let us not lose sightof the variety of ways in which relevance can be found,but rather continue to find ways for visitors to make theirown meanings and connections to objects and displays,by building personal relationships with the museum andits staff.ReferencesAEA Consulting (2005), Tyne & Wear Museums, Bristol’s MuseumsGalleries and Archives Social Impact Programme AssessmentReport. London: AEA Consulting.The Art Fund (2006), The Collecting Challenge. The Art FundMuseum Survey 2006. London: The Art Fund.Black, Graham (2005), The engaging museum: developing museumsfor visitor involvement. London: Routledge.Department for Culture, Media and Sport (2005), Understandingthe Future: museums and 21 st century life. The Value of Museums.London: DCMS.Department for Culture, Media and Sport (2006), Minutesof the Collaborative Working Group Meeting, April 5.Available from [15/1/08]Helen Dennison Associates (2003), Holding up the Mirror.Addressing cultural diversity in London’s museums. London:London Museums Agency.Little, Kylea (2008), ‘Contemporary Collecting at Tyne andWear Museums: an overview focusing on Outreach work’,in this volume.Museums Association (2005), Collections for the Future. Reportof a Museums Association Enquiry. Available from [15/1/08]Museums Association (2007), Making Collections Effective.Collections for the Future two years on. Available from [15/1/08]National Museums Liverpool (2007), Eight Hundred Lives.Available from [15/1/08]National Museums Liverpool (2005), ‘Rare BeatlesMemorabilia Comes Home’ press release, October6. Available from [15/1/08]Newman, A & McLean, F (2004), ‘Capital and the Evaluationof the Museum Experience.’ International Journal of CulturalStudies vol 7 (4) 480-498.Rinçon, L (2005), ‘ “My Voice in a Glass Box” ObjectifyingProcesses in Collecting Practices at the National Museumof World Culture, Sweden’. Conference proceedings of CanOral History Make Objects Speak?, Nafplion, Greece, October18-21. Available from: [15/1/08]Rural Museums Network (2007), Distributed NationalCollection Reports online. Available from [15/1/08]Tyne and Wear Museums (2001), Making History: Final Evaluation.Unpublished report.100

connecting collecting: reinveltThe collections of the National Museumand stereotypesRiina ReinveltEstonian National MuseumThe impetus for this paper is a question that Ivery often ask myself in everyday work: Whyis the Estonian National Museum considereda museum for handicrafts and traditionalpeasant culture? What impels me to ask sucha question and what has led me to such anunderstanding?As chief treasurer and head of the museum’s collectionsdepartment, my duties involve responding to all the telephonecalls, e-mails and letters offering various materialsto the museum – above all, artefacts. The majority ofthe things that people offer us are from the early yearsor decades of the twentieth century and were made ashandicraft products or for performing handicraft – i etools. The objects most commonly offered are spinningwheels, woodworking benches, embroidered tablecloths,crocheted and knitted home textiles and overclothes.Why do people think that the museum should be moreinterested in an object made by an old handicraft thanin a new mass-produced object? By ‘new’, I don’t meanthings made in the present moment, but also, say, factory-madeproducts from the 1950s.A brief background to theEstonian National MuseumFounded in Tartu in 1909, the Estonian National Museumwas dedicated to the memory of Jakob Hurt, one of thegreatest Estonian collectors of folklore. The museum wasto be such an authoritative and comprehensive institutionthat it could simply have been called the EstonianMuseum (like the British Museum, the Russian Museum).The main emphasis was on the material side: ethnographicartefacts related to ancient times and the life andcustoms of everyday people. As in many other Europeancountries, primary importance was attached to preservingthe old, fading peasant culture. Over time, a numberof other museums, archives and libraries were founded,and the Estonian National Museum came to concentratemainly on folk culture. In the Soviet era, the museum wasrenamed as an ethnographic museum, but the old namewas reinstated when independence was restored.Early acquisitions and persistentconservative views among museumemployeesImmediately after the museum was founded, a collectioncommittee was established which made it its goal to systematicallycanvass the whole country, parish by parish.It was decided that all objects that reflected the everyday101

connecting collecting: reinveltlife of the people should be collected – clothing, furniture,tools, utilitarian objects. Folk art, decorative handicraftsand folk costumes were especially highly regarded.Through the press, people were called on to donate, andcirculars were sent out, entitled What the museum is collecting.In the 1920s, the director of the museum was a Finn,Ilmari Manninen, who passed the following judgment onthe museum’s earlier collection efforts:Taking into consideration that collections of antique itemstook place within a relatively short space of time in Estonia,with uncommon intensity, it is understandable that managingthe collection process was to a certain extent difficult. As thecollectors did not have ethnographic training, above all theycollected things that in some way caught the eye. Thus there isquite a lot of typical folk art. And so we really do not need tobe overly concerned about saving typical Estonian folk art: wecan ‘catch our breath.’(Päevaleht 1925)But Manninen does stress that it is necessary to obtainmultiple versions of one artefact. This suited the methodsused in ethnology back then, the goal of which was toidentify the special regional character and compile mapsshowing the range of items. This approach would remainprevalent in the museum’s acquisitions work for decades.Tremendous collections of beer tankards, carpets, chairs,rugs, gloves and belts were amassed. It was as if the museumhad programmed into itself the requirement that ithad to have many similar things. I would stress the word‘similar’, for as we know well, no two handmade items areever alike. The museum’s employees often find it hardto change direction when they have been going one wayfor a long time. But museum collections are created notonly by museum employees, but rather perhaps even toa greater extent by people who wish to donate items tothe museum.The role of the permanentexhibition in creating andperpetuating stereotypesBy what yardstick does a person outside the museum decidewhat might be offered to a museum’s collections? Itseems to me that ordinary people’s understanding of amuseum’s collections and of the nature of museums ismost influenced by the exhibitions on display, above allby the permanent exhibition. This is what is usually rememberedand perhaps what makes a visitor come backa second time. The emphasis of guided programmes isusually on the permanent exhibition as well; the permanentexhibition is explained in greater depth to visitors.Let us take a look at the Estonian National Museum’spermanent exhibition Estonia. Land. People. Culture. It isdivided into four parts:1. The first part presents the everyday life of Estonianpeasants. The heart of the Estonian farmsteadwas the barn dwelling and the other outbuildingsin the farmyard. Everyday life revolvedaround preparations for the winter and the effortsmade to survive it. The household toolsand farm equipment on display date mainly fromthe nineteenth century and are similar to mucholder implements. Visitors enter into what appearsto be a simple farm dwelling, where theysee numerous tools and household accessoriesused for working the land and tools for building.2. The second part introduces festivities and holidays.The exhibition introduces holidays associated withthe calendar as well as rites of passage from onestatus to another. This part begins with a weddingscene. Mannequins in folk costume sit around a diningtable. Behind them hang lavishly decorated weddingtapestries. Mannequins in folk costume alsoappear in scenes in connection with holidays associatedwith the calendar. This part of the exhibition islike a segue into the next part, which is a true homageto the master craftsmen and ‐women of yore.3. The third part focuses on the regional peculiaritiesof Estonian folk culture, mainly folk costumes102

connecting collecting: reinveltand beer tankards. The exhibition catalogue tellsus that although Estonia is small in area, it isamazingly rich in variations of folk art and especiallyfolk costumes. By the general and commonfeatures of its folk culture, Estonia can bedivided into three regions – four if you go by thevariations in its folk costumes. Indeed, abidingby this principle, the exhibition presents varioussets of folk costumes and rows of beer tankardsfor each region. This tends to be the part of thepermanent exhibition that people remember mostvividly. Among the different museums, the EstonianNational Museum is best known as the one withthe great collection of Estonian folk costumes.4. And finally, the fourth part, which the creators ofthe exhibition call a ‘story about being Estonian.’It’s a story about how a peasant people developedinto a modern cultured and civilized nation,accompanied by interiors and photographsfrom the late nineteenth century up to 1978.Three of the four parts of the permanent exhibitionpresent the story of Estonians as a peasant people, duringa time when everything was made by ordinary peoplethemselves or by master handicraftsmen and ‐women.The exhibition takes us back to a time that has personalassociations for only the oldest visitors. Thus it is as ifthe exhibition is telling us about something mysteriousthat we really cannot understand. People come acrossstray relatives of the objects on display here in the deepestrecesses of their closets or in houses bequeathed bytheir grandparents. They themselves do not know whatto do with these things; yet they feel that the museummight consider them important, and so they end up offeringthem to the museum. But should the museum acceptone more handkerchief into its collections, when italready has over 1,000 of them, or one more spinningwheel, when it already has dozens? People often do notunderstand why we do not accept an object that is ‘old’and made by hand. Disappointment can be heard in theirvoices when we say that we already have several dozen orhundred analogous items.Temporary exhibitions deal with culture and everydaylife both in Estonia and elsewhere in the world.They very often deal with what we call ‘more modernphenomena’, but unfortunately this does not influencethe general view of what a museum is for and what a museumdoes.ConclusionI believe that every museum, with its permanent exhibition,has the most direct effect on people’s understandingof their nature and, as a result, where the interest and emphasislie in acquisitions. Thus it can be said that the museumitself is responsible for people’s stereotyped viewsabout what the museum is for, about acquisition workand which fields are of interest. As long as the museum’spermanent exhibition tells the story of the traditionalpeasant culture, people will continue to offer to donateto our collections objects suited to this theme. There isa need to start a discussion about the subject within themuseum, and hopefully the Estonian National Museum’snext permanent exhibition (which will be opened in 2012in a new building) will tell a rather different story aboutEstonian culture. And after ‘reading’ this story, peoplewill change their understanding of museum collections.ReferencePäevaleht, March 27 th , 1925. (newspaper).Image captionsFig 1 Festivities and holidays in peasant society. Photo: ArpKarm, ENM.Fig 2 A modern Estonian home in 1939 shows the process ofmodernization. Photo: Arp Karm, ENM.103

connecting collecting: pareliThe future of Sami heritagein museum collectionsLeif PareliThe Norwegian Museum of Cultural HistoryThe purpose of this article is to discuss recent argumentsconcerning the future of Sami collectionsin major museums outside Samiland. I will gostraight to the point and concentrate on the questionof repatriation because this is a topic whichhas lately been much debated within Sami society,and also by some of the museums concerned.The Nordiska Museet today holds the largest Sami collectionin the world. The museum where I work has thesecond largest. Both these museums have for a long timecollected, documented, preserved, published and exhibitedSami material, material which would otherwiseno doubt have been largely lost. Still, it is a paradox thatthere is so much Sami material lying in the stores of theseand some other large museums, while museums in theSami communities have so little. Undoubtedly, much ofthese collections could be put to better use in exhibitionsin such local Sami museums. In addition many Sami willmention an argument of a more symbolic but also politicalcharacter: The Sami themselves should have controlof their own heritage.Repatriate or not?I should immediately underline that, although my articlewill argue in favour of extensive repatriation, this shouldnot be taken to mean that museums with Sami collectionsand activities should stop collecting, documenting andexhibiting Sami culture. I simply argue for a reappraisalof what our collections contain, and a comparison withwhat is available to the museums situated within Samicommunities. We need an open-minded reconsiderationof how the various parts of our collections can bestbe put to use for research and education for the greaterpublic – including an international audience – as well asfor the Sami communities where these objects originated,and in a certain sense belong.Many of us museum people will automatically shudderat the very word repatriation, because we fear that byaddressing this topic we may risk opening a Pandora’sbox of claims from all directions, which could eventuallystrip us of most of our collections. This is a legitimateworry and I should therefore underline that I think eachcase must be considered against its own unique background.A decision in one case should not automaticallybe relevant for another case. The Sami, as an indigenouspeople, are in a special position. Repatriation of some oftheir heritage does not mean that we open up for all sortsof other claims.During the last few years, many in the Sami communitieshave been voicing their wish to have heritagereturned. This is both out of a concrete interest in havingthe objects at hand locally, for study and exhibitionuse, but also from the standpoint that the Sami mustbe in control of their heritage. As a result of these sentiments,various Sami museums in 2005 organized the105

connecting collecting: pareliproject Recalling Ancestral Voices with the aim of getting anoverview of what material there is in museums outsideSamiland, as a first step in a process to have such heritagereturned to Sami communities. The project organized aseminar in October 2007 at Inari in Finland where manyaspects of these issues were discussed. I am glad that bothNorsk Folkemuseum and Nordiska Museet participatedin the seminar and gave positive signals of a willingnessto discuss repatriation.Gain or lossWhat can we gain from repatriation? Is it only a one-directiontransfer, or could it imply some sort of exchangeof knowledge and cooperation, or even of objects goingboth ways? Could both parties perhaps benefit from sucha situation? Let us consider some cases:As a first example I am happy to mention the largescalerepatriation of Norwegian material from NordiskaMuseet to Norsk Folkemuseum which has taken placesince the 1980s. This includes thousands of objects, includingsome very valuable or even unique examplesof costumes, folk art and other objects, which certainlyhave a much greater value to a Norwegian audience andhave been put to more active use in exhibitions in theNorwegian museum than was the case in Sweden. It is nodoubt that the generosity of Swedish colleagues and authoritieshas been highly appreciated in Norway and hascontributed to a generally positive spirit of cooperationfrom which we have all benefited in joint projects suchas the large exhibition about the two nations producedin 2005 to commemorate the dissolution of the politicalunion between the two countries in 1905 (Norwegiansand Swedes, shown at Norsk Folkemuseum in 2005 and atNordiska Museet 2005/2006).However, the situation of transfer between two largenational museums is in many ways quite different fromthe Sami case. I will therefore rather present two othercases that are more relevant to the Sami situation.Another case, which is in many ways more similarto the situation of Samiland, is Greenland. Both havesmall indigenous populations that were for a long timesubjected to a de facto colonial situation. Greenlandobtained self-government in 1979 and soon the questionarose of the need to create a national museum forGreenland and the wish to transfer to that museum materialfrom Greenland that had been collected by theDanish National Museum. An agreement was workedout and during the years between 1982 and 1991 severalthousand archaeological and ethnographic objectswere transferred to Greenland. This included not only aphysical move but also a transfer of the legal ownershipof the objects to the Greenlandic home rule authorities.As far as I understand, the whole process of repatriationtook place in an atmosphere of mutual goodwill and ithas laid the foundation for extensive cooperation betweenthe two museums in several fields of research andinterpretation. This was demonstrated to me and otherswho participated in an international conference aboutrepatriation, held at Nuuk in February 2007.A third example can be taken from my own personalexperience: Last year, I attended the annualmeeting of the International Committee of Museumsof Ethnography, ICME, in Miami, USA. As part of theconference programme, we visited the museum of theSeminole Indians in their reservation in the central partof Florida. Practically all the objects in this museum wereon long-time loan from the National Museum of theAmerican Indian, in Washington DC. The reason for thisis that practically no older material has been preservedin the local community, and without these loans fromthe national museum, it would not have been possible tomake such a presentation of authentic older material inthe Seminole area. Rick West, the director of the NationalMuseum of the American Indian, who participated in theconference (but not in the visit to the Seminole) arguedstrongly in favour of repatriation and return of materialfrom the major institutions to local communities. He underlinedthe positive experiences of such cooperationand described them as, more often than not, a situationof win-win: Both parties will benefit from the mutualgoodwill and the experience gained in such projects.106

connecting collecting: pareliA process in progressTo conclude, in this short paper I have limited myself topresenting some of the arguments in favour of repatriation.I am of course aware that there are also many validarguments against repatriation, and against the splittingup of collections that often have a specific overall characterand a particular history, which may be important andinteresting in itself. Still, I think the arguments againstrepatriation are less convincing than those in favour ofsuch a re-consideration of old collections. From a historicalperspective, as a scholar with a life-long interestin Sami issues, I find it overwhelmingly positive that thedevelopment of museum institutions within Sami societyhas reached a level where these institutions are nowin a position to take over the care of major parts of thematerial Sami heritage. Needless to say, such a transferof museum collections may be complicated to implementand certainly in some cases it will be controversialto the parties involved. But I am convinced that we canwork out whatever disagreements will arise in a cordialand well-meaning way. If carried out in that manner, thewhole process of repatriation may become, in the wordsof Rick West, a win-win situation. And to see this developmentin a wider historical perspective, we can paraphrasethe famous words of Galileo: ‘It moves – and itmoves forward!’107

connecting collecting: dolákDocumentation of the recent periodin the Czech RepublicJan DolákMasaryk University, BrnoDocumenting both contemporary society and the stateof nature are extremely important tasks of most museumsthe world over. We should differentiate between themodern history and the present period. The first one iseverything that happened and finished not many monthsor years ago. The present period is everything that startedin the past, is happening at present and will probably lastinto the future. It is like the English expression ‘presentperfect’ which means an activity that happened at an unspecifiedtime before now but is still a part of the present.Hence Olof Palme’s assassination in 1986 is history, butthe reign of the Swedish king Carl XVI Gustav, whichstarted in 1973, belongs to the present period. From thispoint of view Czech museums have many objects thatcover modern history (technology, photos, etc), probablymore than in some Western European countries andother countries of the world. On the other hand, the representationof the recent period is fairly sparse.Active selectionIn the case of active selection we have to do with the selectionof contemporary reality. This period gives us thepossibility to preserve such reality in the most authenticway with regard to its major aspects. There are also optimalconditions for the accompanying documentationthere. Active selection also permits us to preserve withappropriate media those phenomena which are not materiallyfixed (theatre, habits and dances). ‘The object ofmuseology is the phenomenon of musealisation in thecontext of contemporary society. Its role is to unveil themotivation and importance of this process for an individual,a group, or a society, and to grasp the forms inwhich this process is realized’ (Stránský 1995: 27–28).One of the most well-known efforts in this context isthe successful Swedish network Samdok, which was presentedat the general conference of ICOM in 1983. ‘Thepresentation of the program demonstrated that many scientistswere aware of the fact that the traditional conceptof museum collecting had been outdated and had to besubstituted for a new one’ (Stránský 1995: 37). The efforthas been reflected on, sometimes with a less understandingattitude, e.g. by the American G. Burcaw (1984), andsometimes with greater sympathy. Recording the presenttime has been done in many museums all over the world,but often without a fixed concept or programme. Samdok’sideas were known in Czechoslovakia fairly early, especiallythanks to the Czech magazine Muzejní a vlastivedná práce(Mudra 1987) and the bulletins of the Moravian museum(Stránský and Fuchsová 1985). But the Czech museumworkers went a different way (Dolák 2006).After 1945The pressure on our museums started after the WorldWar II and especially after 1948, when the CommunistParty began to govern. Now, the first task for museumswas to be useful, and to serve the people. Our museums108

connecting collecting: dolákbegan to be filled with temporary exhibitions describingthe evil imperialism, the fight against the so-calledAmerican beetle (the potato beetle), and the successes ofthe new regime. Museums under pressure and withoutany relevant collections were simply becoming noticeboards for the promotion of the new regime. In the followingperiod (the 60s and 70s) the official pressure becameless aggressive, but more sophisticated; hence wecannot speak about ‘free’ work in the museums.These institutions had to display (and therefore tocollect) evidence of life improvements in the country.Working people could afford more television sets, washingmachines, cars and other things than before, a proofof the fact that ‘socialism was superior to capitalism’.Later, in 1980, the government approved a general decreeno. 234/1980, on the documentation of the socialist reality,the adherence to which was strictly supervised by theauthorities and cautiously observed by museum staff. Itcould hardly be avoided but Czech people never identifiedthemselves with the regime, and Czech museumworkers did not perceive common life as ‘socialist’. So wecollected photos of a visit to a twin city, some productsfrom factories and so on, while we scarcely documentedother things which formed integral part of our lives. If wecollected, we did it feebly and insufficiently. The larger themuseum, the smaller the amount of documentation of thecontemporary society you can find in it.After 1989The Velvet Revolution in 1989 meant a great transitionfor Czech museums. They started collecting and recordingtopics that had been more or less prohibited before(Czech pilots in England during World War II, the activitiesof progressive priests, etc). Unfortunately, lots of museumsturned away from the despised activity of ‘documentingcontemporary society’. It means that we put ahalt to the contemporary collecting of society, includingsuch dramatic changes as the collapse of the communistregime, or changes in ownership. Now, many Czech museumworkers feel that they cannot ignore recent issues,such as the urging issues of putting the minorities onrecord (Veselská 2006), and even though this is a timeconsuming process, things are gradually getting better.In 2007 the fourth conference, which was focused on thedocumentation of contemporary society, took place inthe Technical Museum in Brno (Stöhrová 2006). Theseconferences were prepared in cooperation with the BrnoUNESCO Chair.In my opinion there are two main reasons why Czechmuseums hesitate to collect and document the recentperiod. Firstly: previous political pressure, the absenceof relevant methodology etc. Secondly: the absence of aneffective deaccessioning policy. Many Czech curators seethe moment of registration of an object in a collection asan irrevocable act. However, no museum can have ‘everything’due to lack of storage space, registration clerksetc. Therefore, in my university lectures, I systematicallypoint to issues of contemporary studies and collecting,including the Swedish Samdok. In fact, Samdok is quitea frequent question which comes up in both BA and MAexams in Brno museology studies.ReferencesBurcaw, Ellis G (1984), No title, in Sofka, Vinoš. Collecting Todayfor Tomorrow: Icofom Study Series 6. 1st edition. Stockholm:Museum of National Antiquities, pp 110–121.Dolák, Jan (2006), ‘Dokumentace současnosti doma i vesvětě’, in Stöhrová, Pavla, ed, Teorie a praxe – dokumentacesoučasnosti: Sborn’kíz odborného semináře. Brno: Technickémuzeum v Brně, pp 4–20.Mudra, Miroslav (1987), ‘SAMDOK – švédský systémdokumentace dneška pro zítřek’, in Muzejnía vlastivědnápráce. No 4. Praha: Národn’ muzeum, pp 231–234.Stránský, Zbyněk Zbyslav (1995), Museology: Introduction tostudies. 1st edition. Brno: Masaryk University.Stránský, Zbyně k Zbyslav & Fuchsová Pavla (1985), Metodickýlist M/1/. Brno: Metodicko-muzeologické oddě len’Moravského muzea v Brně.Stöhrová, Pavla (2006), Teorie a praxe – dokumentace společnosti:Sborník z odborného semináře konaného v Technickém muzeu vBrně. 1st edition. Brno: Technické muzeum v Brně.Veselská, Dana (2006), Thesauration and presentation of the culturalheritage of minorities in the collections and exhibition programmesof museums and galleries. 1st edition. Praha: Židovskémuzeum v Praze.109

connecting collecting: knokaCollecting contemporaneity in Latvia:Communicative and professional aspectsIlze KnokaLatvia State Museum AdministrationOwing to the successful museum accreditationprocess in Latvia, public museums have definedtheir collection policies, and recent history is usuallymentioned in them. Nevertheless, ‘the presentday’ more likely means the limit of collecting spanthan an object of museological interest.In 1999 the Latvian museum community decided to organizea joint project, an exhibition devoted to the historyof Latvia in the twentieth century. The idea was to usethe holdings of all the museums that would agree to participate.The exhibition never took place, mostly due tofinancial problems, but the very phase of story-buildingfor this exhibition also brought up some characteristicsof our professional thinking.As the idea was to show a whole century, we had tobe very careful in choosing the events and facts to bementioned within a single exhibition space and narrative.As long as this choice and story-building referredto the first forty years of the century, it was really clear;actually there were hardly any discussions on what tochoose and which stories to uncover via the display. Thecloser it came to the 1950s and further, the more confusedeveryone was feeling. First, because we were notcertain about the choice itself, and, second, we had nomutual perception of the facts and events picked for thestory.So, we faced the situation typical to museums – wewere not capable of dealing with that part of our pastwhich is so recent that we had not mythologized it. Eventhough we were not going to deal with the most recentperiod, the exhibition would have covered events ofabout ten years ago. The museums and the curators werenot ready to deal with that close history – the museumsbecause there were no objects accumulated yet to tellany stories about the period starting in about 1945. Andthis was because the curators or, to be more precise, theprofessional thinking, the understanding of the task museumsshould perform, had not involved any interest inrecent periods.Furthermore, the members of the work team realizedthat they were not ready to decide which events shouldbe told about, what ideas and messages should be sentabout the second part of the century, as our minds hadnot thought about it in museum or interpretative terms.If I do not go into detail about the discussions on eachdecade and difficulties of deciding among the wide rangeof cultural, political and economic events, then the museologicalessence will be as follows: The project grouphad a need to exhibit the recent period not canonizedyet and therefore not covered with tangible and intangiblepieces of heritage. If it had been a particular museumand not a project group, the next natural step could havebeen a list of activities directed towards accessioning themissing objects. Thereby the usual chain of activities, orthe food chain usually employed in museums, wouldhave been closed and launched.110

connecting collecting: knokaFramework of collecting work inLatviaThe diagram (page 112) shows what I call a commonfood chain of contemporary collecting. According tothe Museum Law, public museums and all the museumsseeking public funding have to obtain accreditation forwhich there is a range of documents and a mode of operationto prepare. To put it briefly, the museums have todemonstrate their sustainability via policies of collecting,research and communication, by putting forward theirstrategic priorities in the three fields and a detailed activityplan for the next planning period (five to ten years).When reading these planning documents, one can evaluatenot only the transparency and accountability of themanagement, but also the philosophy of museum work,the principles according to which the particular museumperforms its activities.As you can see from the diagram, the alpha and omega,the leading argument for every step is the missionstatement upon which museums usually ground theirchoices. This mission statement is supposed to includethematic, geographical and temporal limits of a particularmuseum – what, where and which period? Havingnominated the theme and the spatial span, nearly all museumshave defined their temporal interests as coveringtheir field ‘from the beginning till now’. This optimisticallypromises some role to contemporaneity as well. Andthat is really so – no museum has rejected the materialevidence of the recent past. On the contrary – in theircollection policies, most of them have mentioned a specialinterest in the tangible and intangible heritage of therecent periods. Consequently, we could argue that contemporarydocumenting and collecting is taking placeand the museums are aware of the importance of that.However, this is the level of policy which expresses theoverall interests and principles of operation. It does notshow the real everyday performance.If we look further, the priorities developed from thecollecting policy are the next and much more influentpart of planning. The priorities are certainly rooted in thepolicy but, as a list of particular tasks, it is closely connectedand dependent on the museum activity plan –the programme of exhibitions, publications, educationalproducts etc. Communicative activities, decisions onwhat issues to discuss with the audience, what themes toaddress, give the direction of the institution. And here thelink, the connection between the contemporary societyand the activity plan is much feebler. With a few exceptions,museum products and activities of all kinds, andexhibitions in particular, show very little interest in ourrecent past.However, there are museums for which the temporalspan is not that wide. For instance, the Museum ofOccupation, as it is implied in the name, covers the periodfrom 1940 to 1991 and aims to remind people ofthe wrongdoing during the Soviet and Nazi occupations.There is the Museum of Barricades of 1991 that coversthe period from 1986 to 1998, from the establishmentof the first anti-Soviet organization to the withdrawal ofSoviet troops. This museum interprets the regaining ofnational and political independence. Compared to othermuseums, these ones are seemingly more involved incontemporary material. Still, in reality, they are somewhatfurther from it, since by using such precise timelimits, they have drawn a strict border of interest. Theyear 1998 is the year when Soviet troops were officiallyand actually pulled out of the territory of our country,and neither research nor any programmes should beundertaken referring to events beyond these time limits.So, the never-ceasing flow of events, changing reality, orcurrent mass activities, demonstrations or pickets againstthe government is not of interest.Restoration tendency: looking backwardsIf we look more closely at the activity plans, the line consistingof research – exhibition – educational programs,then the overall (again, of course, there are exceptions)approach can be characterized as calendar and chronologyorientated. The choice of themes and stories is mostlyconnected with some kind of anniversary (that of aperson or an event) or the museum has launched a set ofdisplays following history period by period. Here somekind of restoration tendency can be spotted: Due to thehistorical and political restrictions, the periods before the111

connecting collecting: knokaSoviet occupation used to be interpreted with a particularbias. Likewise, the Soviet age had a specific interpretationbased on Soviet ideology. For about fifteen years now,museums have been trying to compensate for this by collectingmissing materials about the period between theworld wars. The other age undergoing reinterpretation isthat between 1940 and the 1950s. Somehow museumshave drawn a borderline in the 1970s. Some explain thiswith the age of Brezhnev as a particular period of historywhich has to be looked at separately, but it is morelikely to have some connection with that unwritten ruleof about 50 years which museums are not supposed tobreach in their interest. Museums are somewhat certainthey do not have any ideological task of interpreting thepresent; when setting the mission and the communicativegoals, museums define themselves as those retellinghistory, not as those commenting on today.Need for compensation – escapingthe ugly pastplanned for the next ten years, most museums are notgoing to interpret any part of our lives closer than the1970s. And – according to the principles museums havedefined in their policy documents – if they are not addressingthis theme, they are not doing any active collecting.So, although ‘the present day’ is mentioned a lot,collecting it is quite likely to be passive or reactive for awhile.Mission –to collect, studyand popularizethe field fromthe beginningstill nowadaysResearchpriorities –according to theactivity planActivity plan- Calendar- Thematic- ChronologicalapproachOne tendency is a kind of restoration. It is not just aboutfilling gaps; accents and storylines are to be completelychanged. The other tendency is a wish to forget, to block,and to isolate bad and ugly memories. Therefore bothpeople and museums (where representatives of the samesociety perform) have been trying not to think aboutthe second part of the twentieth century. For instance,it would be rather difficult to collect kitchen utensilsof the 1960s–1980s like those we saw in the exhibition‘The Megacollector’ at the Nordiska Museet, since peoplewere so eager to get rid of them in the 1990s. They werenot just utensils; they were part of the bad and ‘wrong’history. Museums joined people in this feeling. Thiscompensation tendency and necessity to create a storyof positive history does not allow much space for interestin the present. The common trend to avoid unpleasantstories shows the understanding of the museum’s communicativetasks; museums do not put their feet intopainful and fragile issues; they do not use their resourcesto deal with current social problems.If we look at the exhibitions and research activitiesCollectingpolicy– to collectaccording tothe missionCollectingpriorities –according to theactivity planContemporaneityNonmythologized- Since 1991- Since 1998112

connecting collecting: żakiewicDon’t look a gift horse in the mouth.The problem of wanted and unwanteddonations to the museum collectionAnna ŻakiewiczNational Museum, WarsawThe Contemporary Prints and DrawingsDepartment at the National Museum in Warsawcounts about 40,000 items. Many of them aredonations – mainly by artists but also by otherpersons and institutions. This article discussesone special situation when an unwanted and unworthy-lookingdonation became quite interestingmaterial for studying and even exhibiting.In 1960 the National Museum received a very interestingdonation of 1,211 prints and drawings from the Ministryof Culture. Most of them represented so-called socialrealism in pure shape. This artificial and unwanted stylewas officially decreed by the Polish government in 1949– every work of art was to be ‘national in its form and socialin its content’. The Short Dictionary of Philosophy (1955)defined it as ‘the most consistent and the highest form ofrealism in art’.Some intellectuals tried to protest against this violence.Jerzy Turowicz (1949), editor of the main Catholicweekly Tygodnik Powszechny, wrote:A consistency of the order we are used to living in, is makingall our life political [...] We Catholics also wanted peopleto have a philosophy of life and remember about the socialfunction of each work of culture [...] but all that doesn’t meanthat culture should be subordinated to politics [...] Politics isnot the most important side of human reality, it is not a targetfor itself, the target is just culture.The artists’ reactionAlas, many artists preferred to obey all those officials’regulations. The effect was horrible and sometimesdownright grotesque. But the situation wasn’t as clear asit might seem to be. Recapitulating art of the fifties in theearly eighties of the twentieth century, the famous criticof the time, Janusz Bogucki (1983: 64–65), wrote:Looking from a distance of three decades for artists’ andtheorists’ decisions at the beginning of the 1950s we have toremember a huge historical process impacting the imaginationof the survivors’ generation wanting to live intensively again.Under the political and social revolutionary shock a newera was opening. The demanded social realism would be itsdeterminant in art. That was the idea leading the artists outof an intelligentsia enclave, supported by the combative energyof new authorities, requiring pains and abstentions for moreimportant historical reasons. Following all that was a greatadventure of that time. It was a very difficult but also attractivegame because of a chance to regain all those lost years. Artistsalso hoped to realize themselves through active participationin creating a new world movement [...] Of course, apart fromvarious variants of an approval based on an ideology [...] therewere also some other motifs: aspiring to achieve success on thewaves of the prevailing trend, anxiety about ‘leaning out’ andan ordinary willingness to adapt to the situation.We should also remember that not adapting to all thecurrent ideology usually meant a public death – there113

connecting collecting: żakiewicwas no room in exhibition halls and museum collectionsfor an artist not observing the rules of social realism. Andof course it meant lack of money and means to live aswell. For instance, Władysław Strzemiński, an eminentPolish avant-garde artist and theorist (in 1930s he createdan original art theory of ‘unism’) lost his job at theArt School in Łódź in October 1950 (see Fik 1989: 146)and his works could not be exhibited for several yearsbecause he rejected the rules. So exclusions were rare.Cultural authorities organized huge annual exhibitionsof such an artistic production – known as All-Polish Exhibitions of Art. The first was at the NationalMuseum in Warsaw (20 March – 7 May 1950), the nextones in the main Warsaw Gallery of Contemporary Art(Zachęta). The Ministry of Culture bought selected worksas a kind of support for obedient artists and even awardeda special prize for their obedience and respect of therules. Then all the works were donated to the NationalMuseum to create the very specific collection.Preferred topicsSo let’s see what was on the list ... Many of the items depictedtraditional ‘neutral’ themes such as still-life andlandscape, although all of them were executed as if theirauthors had never heard about new directions in art ofthe twentieth century – cubism, surrealism and particularlyabstraction. Like the art works described by theNazis in the 1930s as ‘Entartete Kunst’, such trends in visualarts were completely rejected by Polish officials supportingartists and selecting works for exhibitions andbuying for museums. So quite a large proportion of authorspreferred ‘safe’ topics and ‘quiet’ naturalistic style.But a chance for presenting and selling a work increasedif an artist depicting a landscape had chosen Northernor Western Poland – i e Pomerania or Silesia – so-calledRegained Lands, which were included in the Polish Stateafter World War II following the Potsdam Treaty in thesummer of 1945. The subject was needed to make theidea of the ‘Polishness’ of those regions popular. So ourcollection was enriched with some images of Gdańsk(Danzig), Olsztyn (Allstein), Szczecin (Stettin), Toruń(Thorn), Wrocław (Breslau), Zielona Góra (Gruenberg)and areas around.The Polishness of those areas was also confirmed byhistorical scenes e g, a visit of the Polish king BolesławChrobry (the Brave) to Szczecin at the beginning of theeleventh century or a famous Polish victory in the greatbattle with the Teutonic Knights near Grunwald in 1410,depicted by Stanisław Brzęczkowski. On the other hand,the problem of the eastern lands of pre-war Poland includedin Soviet Union or battles with the eastern neighbourdid not exist at all. That subject was strictly forbidden,not only in art.Also still-life had to be ideologically ‘correct’ and wassupposed to include tools of work: musical instruments,elements of soldier’s outfit, gardening or farming tools,workbenches of craftsmen (a saddler, a shoemaker ora blacksmith). But the most preferred were bricklayingtools and materials (barrels of cement, bricks, implements,trestles, sand, buckets, etc). The latter were strictlyconnected with another preferred and ‘safe’ topic of thatera: post-war reconstruction, especially Warsaw whichwas completely destroyed in the autumn of 1944, afterthe Warsaw Uprising. But the pride in rebuilding lovelyancient houses of the medieval Warsaw Old Town wasquickly eclipsed by building something new – known asMDM, a district built in the 1950s in a horrible Sovietstyle. (Marszałkowska Dzielnica Mieszkaniowa (MDM)translates ‘Marshal District for Living’; it comes fromMarszałkowska Street – the main avenue of Warsaw.)Another theme was the everyday hard work of all the‘working class’ of the new socialist society, particularlyof coal miners and villagers providing riches and foodfor the whole state. But the most appreciated in that categorywere art works connected with Nowa Huta (NewFoundry) – a new suburb of the former capital Cracow,built since 1948 and during the 1950s. Besides being thenew biggest foundry in Poland, giving jobs to hundredsof people, Nowa Huta was a new vast place for living inand also for entertainment – there was a theatre and evena museum (a branch of Cracow Archaeology Museum).The project was realized with the strong financial supportof the Soviet Union, but has now completely collapsedand remained as a tourist attraction only. But inthe 1950s every artist had to create at least one work de-114

connecting collecting: żakiewicvoted to the builders of Nowa Huta, for example ZofiaDębowska-Tarasin (Fig 1).Faces of the timePortraiture was another very important matter. The mostpreferred were, of course, portraits of the greatest –Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin and also Feliks Dzierżyński(founder of the Soviet Secret Police, a Pole by origin). Soour collection contains three images of Stalin (two drawingsby Aleksander Rak and Jan Tarasin and a lithographby Walerian Borowczyk,) (Fig 6). Sometimes artists depictedlovely and even moving scenes from the persons’lives – e g Lenin Talking with Highlanders (a lithograph byAleksander Rak; the scene was connected with the ‘Polish’episode from Lenin’s life – his stay in Poronin, a smallvillage at the feet of the Tatra Mountains in 1912–1914).Dzierżyński (who was known as a very cruel manand called the ‘Red Executioner’ because of blood ofhis numerous victims on his hands) was depicted at thebed of an ill revolutionary (Fig 2, a drawing by HelenaKrajewska, one of the most important artists of the time),showing an equally human side of the man – spendingvacation with the Russian writer Maxim Gorki on Capri(a drawing by Aleksander Winnicki) or writing his diaries(a drawing by Tomasz Gleb). But artists didn’t forgetabout the hard revolutionary work of the hero: TomaszGleb depicted him speaking to workers in a coal-mineand Mieczysław Majewski as a carrier of illegal (in thetsars’ era) prints. All these works devoted to Dzierżyńskiwere done in 1951 and presented during the SecondAll-Polish Exhibition in Zachęta Gallery in Decemberthat year. Certainly it was a result of the erection of theDzierżyński Monument in one of the main squares ofWarsaw in July 1951 on the occasion of 25th anniversaryof the Red Executioner’s death (Fik 1989: 155). Of course,the square was named after Dzierżyński until 1989, whenthe monument was destroyed and the place got its formerpre-war name – Bank Square.We also have a portrait of Mao Zedong (a woodcutby Bronisław Tomecki) and a woman revolutionary,Małgorzata Fornalska (a drawing by Barbara Gawdzik-Brzozowska) and a founder of Wielki Proletariat(International Social-Revolutionary Party established inPoland in 1882), Ludwik Waryński (a lithograph by JózefPakulski).Pablo Neruda, the communist poet, a refugee fromChile, visited countries of Eastern Europe in the 1950s (in1950 he spent some time in Warsaw). He was especiallypopular there after obtaining the Lenin Peace Prize in1953. His poems were translated into Polish by the greatestpoets and published in 1950–1954, so also visual artistscould not ignore him and two Neruda portraits (adrawing by Tadeusz Brzozowski and an etching by JaninaKondracka) came to our collection.Some portraits also present ‘ordinary’ people – miners,founders, fishermen, farmers, tractor-drivers, builders,bricklayers, etc – as heroes of everyday life and patternsto follow for all of society (Fig 1 for instance).Friends and enemiesSome artists paid an obligatory tribute of continuousdemonstration of the friendship with Poland’s Big Brotherby doing illustrations of Russian literature. Fortunatelythey chose nineteenth-century classics (Gogol, Chekhov,Tolstoy, Pushkin), not awful socrealistic prose – with oneimportant exception, Pedagogical Poem by Makarenko (twoetchings by Katarzyna Latałło).One specific trend in socrealism was mocking andscoffing Western countries, particularly the United States,for their capitalism and imperialism. Many of the worksexhibited at the All-Polish Exhibition of Art in WarsawZachęta Gallery entitled Artists Struggling for Peace in 1950focused on the subject. An excellent example bought toour museum collection after the exhibition was a drawingby Bronisław Wojciech Linke entitled Truman the Virtuoso(or Pianist, fig 4) depicting Harry S Truman, AmericanPresident (1945–1953) playing the piano with keys madefrom guns. The drawing was a counterpart to anothervery famous work by Linke in the late 1930s, well knownto the Polish audience for presenting Adolf Hitler in thesame way. Depicting the USA and Americans as the mainthreat to world security was appreciated by the officials,and such works were prized and willingly purchased forthe state collections.115

connecting collecting: żakiewicA similar portrait of Truman by Linke was reproducedin Trybuna Wolności (‘Freedom Tribune’, a popular dailypaper in the 1950s) with a poem by Józef Prutkowski:‘Truman thought he would die, / Truman’s attack washard, / but Arthur his Mac advised him / to take theKorean Pill / Truman couldn’t digest it / wanted to swallowand suffocated.’ The poem contains an offensiveword-game. Displacing parts of the name MacArthur(American general in World War II and the Korean War)as ‘Arthur his Mac’ created a Polish equivalent of an insult– son of a bitch (literally: ‘a bitch (is) his mother’;‘Mac’ sounds like Russian ‘mat’’ – mother – popular alsoin Polish, especially in such a context). Another drawingby Linke, A New Face of Capitalism (fig 3), bought forthe museum collection was also reproduced in TrybunaWolności in 1952 and exhibited in the Warsaw ZachętaGallery (1952/1953). The work presents a bust of a manin a top hat. The whole face of the man is covered withbig, awful insects and worms.‘Political caricature stands in the first line of the classstruggle, it is an ideological weapon, reacting to everymove of the enemy at once [...] with artistic means participatesin the building of communism in our country,’wrote Tadeusz Borowski (1950), a novelist and a poet andalso a tragic man who committed suicide in 1951 at theage of 28, after he had become disappointed with all theideology.The ‘package’ of works bought this time for the MNWalso contained several prints and drawings by WalerianBorowczyk (the artist mentioned above depicting Stalin).Some of them – similarly to Linke’s ones – were connectedwith the Western world. Lithographs such as AmericanGifts and Free World present malicious points of view todiscourage Polish people from America and the westernstyle of life. The first one (fig 5) depicts a man in a top hatpulling the striped clothing of a prisoner in a Nazi concentrationcamp (with a big prisoner’s number on it) outof a crate inscribed with MARSHALL in big letters (referringto the Marshall Plan). The second print presents aman tied against a wall with big corporate logos: Coca-Cola, Steelexport, RCA (fig 7). In contrast, Borowczyk dida drawing Electrification of the Village to show everybodythe development of civilization in Poland...But times are changing ...For many years all of us have found that part of our collectiona curiosum, but now things are changing. We candistance ourselves from that problem and look at theworks as a special historical documentation of a horribletime when the prevailing policy was able to dominate artand artists. Many people from Poland and other countrieswant to study all the material; articles and books arewritten and exhibitions are organized on this topic andpresent those works.In the mid-1970s and early 1980s some books recapitulatingthe Polish art of the period since 1945 were published(Kowalska 1975; Wojciechowski 1975; Kępińska1981; Bogucki 1983). It was significant that the authorsusually omitted the embarrassing problem of socrealism.Wojciechowski didn’t mention it at all, Kępińska devotedonly two pages to it (in a 280-page book!). Kowalska consideredthe first half of the fifties exclusively as a time ofblocking avant-garde ideas. Only Janusz Bogucki (quotedabove) at the beginning of the 1980s tried to describeand explain the phenomenon. But the first true synthesiswas Socrealizm: Sztuka polska (Socrealism: Polish Art)1950–1954 by Wojciech Włodarczyk (doctoral thesis preparedat the University of Warsaw) published in Paris in1986. In the autumn of the same year Maryla Sitkowskaorganized a huge exhibition Oblicza socrealizmu (Faces ofSocrealism) at the National Museum in Warsaw. The curatorshowed many of the works mentioned above. Theexhibition was very well received by the audience andmuch worse by artists, particularly those whose workswere represented. Since that time many exhibitions havebeen organized in smaller museums all over Poland.Quite a new arrangement of the Gallery of twentieth-centuryArt at the National Museum in Warsaw wasopened in April 2007. It contains works executed between1945 and 1955 (the next period will be presented later,perhaps next year) so a large part of the show presentssocrealistic paintings (see Nowakowska-Sito 2007).Currently David Crowley is preparing a major exhibitionconnected with the problem. Cold War Modern willbe presented at London’s Victoria and Albert Museumin the autumn of 2008 and then in Rovereto, Italy, inthe spring of 2009. Two prints by Borowczyk mentioned116

connecting collecting: żakiewicabove (American Gifts and Free World) will be exhibited.The whole situation described in this paper presentsthe case when a completely unwanted donation has becomean interesting base for extending knowledge oftwentieth-century history and its strange sides, sometimesso willingly forgotten.ReferencesBogucki, Janusz (1983), Sztuka Polski Ludowej (Art of the PolishPeople’s Republic). Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne iFilmowe.Borowski, Tadeusz (1950), ‘O postępowych i wstecznychtradycjach kultury politycznej’ (On Progressive andReactionary Traditions of Political Culture), PrzeglądArtystyczny. /Quaterly./Fik, Marta (1989), Kultura polska po Jałcie: Kronika lat (PolishCulture after the Yalta Treaty: Timeline) 1944–1989.London: Polonia.Kępińska, Alicja (1981), Nowa sztuka polska (New Polish Art)1945–1970. Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Artystyczne iFilmoweKowalska, Bożena (1975), Polska awangarda malarska: Szansei mity (Polish Avant-garde in Painting: Chances andMyths) 1945–1970. Warszawa: Powszechne WydawnictwoNaukowe.Nowakowska-Sito, Katarzyna et al (2007), Galeria sztuki XXwieku: Odsłony kolekcji (Gallery of Twentieth-CenturyArt: Uncovering the Collection) 1945–1955. Warszawa:Muzeum Narodowe.Sitkowska, Maryla (1986), Oblicza socrealizmu, katalog wystawy(Faces of Socrealism, exhibition catalogue). Warszawa:Muzeum Narodowe.Turowicz, Jerzy (1949), ‘Kultura i polityka’ (Culture and Politics),Tygodnik Powszechny. /Weekly./Włodarczyk, Wojciech (1986), Socealizm: Sztuka polska(Socrealism: Polish Art) 1950–1954. Paris: Libella.Wojciechowski, Aleksander (1975), Młode malarstwo polskie(Young Polish Painting) 1945–1970. Warszawa: Ossolineum.Image captionsFig 1. Dębowska-Tarasin, A Bricklayer’s Assistant, lithograph.Fig 2. Helena Krajewska, Dzierżyński at the Bed of an IllRevolutionary, charcoal.Fig 3. Bronislaw Wojciech Linke, A New Face of Capitalism,Indian ink.Fig 4. Bronisław Wojciech Linke, Truman the Virtuoso, Indianink.Fig 5. Walerian Borowczyk, American Gifts, lithograph.Fig 6. Walerian Borowczyk, Portrait of Stalin, lithograph.Fig 7. Walerian Borowczyk, Free World, lithograph.Photo: Mikołaj Machowski, National Museum in Warsaw.117

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connecting collecting: šegaContemporary society in Slovene museumsTanja Roženbergar ŠegaMuseum of Recent History, CeljeThis paper examines the interrelation between researchtopics examined by urban ethnology andvisions pursued by the concept of modern museums.Since they share certain research topics, theimportance of interaction and an opportunity forthe development of urban ethnology within museumsis emphasised.The concept of the urban is thematically connected withtwo categories: with towns (cities) and town centres asthe places that reflect the most intensive elements of urbanlifestyle, 1 and with the category of modernity withcharacteristics of the consumer society. Opening andemphasizing contemporary urban orientations in museologydefines a new and meaningful role for museumsin modern society. The insights into the changing natureand constant development of society, and besides thatalso the short duration of material culture, spread intothe world of museums. Thus the collecting of contemporaryobjects is today a museum policy that is necessaryand equal to others (Roženbergar 2000: 171). But heremy crucial question arises, the question of how thesetopics are dealt with by ethnologists and museologists.I will expose the problem of not including urban ethnologicalstudies in contemporary Slovene museums.1 The urban and town-like are not seen as one and the same, sincesome elements of urban lifestyle are also reflected in villages, butthey are of course most recognizable in town centres.Contemporary orientations inmuseology and urban ethnologicalstudiesDiversity, industrialization and urbanization, culturalmelting pots, disappearance of traditional rural characteristics,technological development, global economicgrowth, the forming of a consumer society, presentationof mass-migration trends, oppression and disappearanceof differences are only some of the themes explored bymodern museums.Theoretically, ethnology in Slovenia was faced withthese themes long before all other museum disciplines.Modern consumer society, and mainly urban culturelinked with it and attached to the town system, thepresent, everyday life and modern cultural occurrencesof towns, have become the themes of ethnological analysesand research. Theoretical and methodological pluralism,characteristic of town research (Brumen 1994: 29),therefore enabled research into urban life and consumersociety from different aspects: the studies dealt withtowns as areas with ethnic and social heterogeneity, urbanidentity and urban cultural processes, certain urbanprofessional groups, and urban community as a whole.The beginnings of ethnological studies of urban issuesin Slovenia are linked with the Department of Ethnologyand Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of Arts inLjubljana and Professor Slavko Kremenšek. Stressingthe importance of ethnological research concerning thisfield and encouraging students to undertake small-scale119

connecting collecting: šegaresearch also in towns, with emphasis on modern phenomena,was even considered one of the characteristicsof studying ethnology in Ljubljana. Within the researchprogramme The Lifestyle of Slovenes in the Twentieth Century,a project called The Ethnological Topography of Slovene EthnicTerritory was carried out in the 1980s and early 1990s,which also presented a certain system for ethnologicalstudies of modern lifestyle, since special stress was laidon the dissolution of traditional culture and the changesin it. These studies mostly treat urban areas as constituentparts of wider territories, since, with regard to the divisionof the researched region according to individualcommunities, urban areas are in the centre of the examinedarea (Kremenšek 1994: 10).Collecting and documentingmodern society – the situationin SloveniaThe most frequent museum presentations and researchstudies in general concern the field of working culture,mainly mining and iron industry. Already in the 1950s,under the guidance of the Technical Museum of Slovenia,special collections around Slovenia were created (Idrija,Jesenice, Kropa, Ravne na Koroškem) with the intentionof preserving the industrial and mining heritage of theareas which became urbanized along with the developmentof these industries.Today museum presentations are held in all formerlyimportant mining basins. The central museum in theZasavje region, in the town of Trbovlje, has arranged two‘in situ’ miner’s apartments in a mining settlement. Oneshows a typical miner’s apartment from the first quarterof the twentieth century (set up in 1984), while the otherreveals housing conditions in the same settlement in theearly 1960s (set up in 2003). The characteristics of theminer families’ housing culture are also revealed throughthe collections and exhibitions in the Town Museumin Idrija and the Coal Mining Museum of Slovenia inVelenje.Some Slovene museums have permanent exhibitionswhich also include modern society (Museum of ModernHistory Slovenia, Museum of Recent History Celje,City Museum Ljubljana, Regional Museum of MurskaSobota…). I should also mention a few other exhibitions.A temporary exhibition Ljubljana in the Penultimate Fashionprepared by Tanja Tomažič (in 1983) displayed the middle-classlifestyle in Ljubljana. The exhibition HouseholdAppliances and Lifestyles (1997/98) also went beyond thetraditional concepts of museologically-ethnologicallytreated themes. A more extensive periodical exhibitionThe Memories of our Youth – Life under the Stars (an ethnologicaloverview of the post-war events in the Goriškaregion) was opened in 1997 in the Goriško Museum inNova Gorica. The author of the exhibition Inga MiklavčičBrezigar starts the introduction to the catalogue withthe following words: ‘ethnology in a different way…’(Miklavčič 1997: 4) which clearly warns us about the positionof collecting in the sphere of modernity and urbanlifestyle. An important message is conveyed by the followingpiece of information: most of the exhibited materialwas collected during the setting up of the exhibitionand was not brought from storage facilities. Later theseobjects were also acquired for the museum collection.Another interesting project was carried out at theMuseum of Recent History Celje on the initiative of anethnologist (the author of this article), when over a periodof one year all employees brought empty packagingthey came across at home. ‘Instead of throwing it away– bring it to the museum’, could be the slogan of thisproject. All objects collected represent a unique sourcefor research into the standard of living of a Slovene family,for establishing the ratio of domestic to importedproducts on the market, and for finding out about thegenuineness of industrial products in Celje.The Slovene Ethnographic Museum developed amethodology for collecting objects of the consumer society,which is based on three basic collecting criteria(mass production, typicality, and specificity) and a multilevelprocess of collecting and selecting museum objects(Keršič, Rogelj Škafar, Sketelj, Žagar 2001: 90). The newpermanent exhibition shows only some objects from theconsumer society as illustrations, mainly in the contextof gradual development of a certain product or its modernantipode.120

connecting collecting: šegaReasons for the lack of collectionson modernity in Slovene museumsWe can say that Slovenia has still not established a continuousand systematic broadly organized way of workingin the field of museum studies and presentation ofurban life and modernity. But have Slovene museumsthemselves ‘identified the various challenges arisingfrom global social changes in the last decade’ (Hudales2005: 226)? Why is there such split between theory andpractice?There are several reasons for this situation, and theyreflect one basic problem, which is lack of adequateeducation and consequently lack of knowledge, sinceSlovenia still has no university heritage studies programmes.Certain individual educational projects, whichbring select knowledge and individual foreign educationalprogrammes only to a select group of professionals,are far from being enough to improve the overall situation.Precisely for this reason the ‘theoretical level’ or‘museological idea’ is being formed and developed tooslowly. If we knew the theory of modern museum orientationsbetter, projects would be set up more quicklyin practice, with stronger and greater engagement of theexperts themselves.Lack of knowledge and education as the reasons forthe existing situation could be complemented by anotherfar-reaching problem, which is little opportunity for employmentin the museum profession. Inclusion of youngexperts equipped with up-to-date knowledge is possibleonly exceptionally, within project work, since the lastpermanent employments date back to the 1990s, whenthe first generations of curators retired, considering thefact that museums were founded in the 1950s.The term urban ethnology is entirely unknown inSlovene museum practice. Related to it is the expressionrecent history, which also acquired its museum frameworka decade ago in an unofficial special section of curatorhistoriansfor recent history. Thus those researching anddocumenting modernity were and still are mostly curator-historians.But did ethnologists and cultural anthropologistsnot talk about this long ago? It is indisputablethat a curator-ethnologist is indispensable in researchand setting up exhibitions which present the so-calledrecent history at the level of everyday life.Thinking about this, we drifted to a wider problemof not accepting and not considering ethnology withinmuseum expert circles, where a relatively stereotypedview mostly still prevails. Kremenšek says: ‘The notionsof ethnology outside the ethnological profession, not tomention the notions of certain ethnologists themselves,were mostly not supported. Colleagues who startedworking in institutions outside Ljubljana were mostlybusy with other urgent tasks imposed by their environment’(1994: 10).I believe that ethnologists-museologists all too rarelytake advantage of the museum exhibition language to putup striking exhibitions, which would help diminish thedoubts, guesswork and sometimes also negative standpointsabout ethnology in museums, in professional aswell as wider circles. Our profession would more easilypave the way also with the help of exhibitions meetingwith a wide response.Concluding thoughtIn the conclusion I once more stress the importance andthe role of contemporary museums in society, mainly inthe light of theoretical-practical reflections. The interrelationbetween research topics examined by urban ethnologyand visions pursued by the concept of modernmuseum calls for interaction and opens many opportunitiesfor the development of urban ethnology withinmuseums. Moreover, the latter is becoming one of theleading orientations of modern museological trends.Therefore it is all the more important that certain tasksare handled precisely by curator-ethnologists, for thesake of both the science and the profession.ReferencesBrumen, Borut (1994), ‘Evropske urbane študije preddurmi posturbanosti’, in Etnolog 4. Ljubljana: Slovenskietnografski muzej.Hudales, Jože (2005), ‘Etnološka dediščina v muzejih 21.Stoletja’, in Nataša Visočnik, ed, Dediščina v rokah stroke.121

connecting collecting: šegaLjubljana: Županičeva knjižnica 14. Oddelek za etnologijoin kulturno antropologijo, Filozofska fakulteta.Keršič, Irena; Rogelj Škafar, Bojana; Sketelj, Polona & Žagar,Janja (2001), ‘Selection, Collection and Interpretation.On the Criteria and Strategies of Collecting MaterialCultural Heritage and their Ethnological Interpretations’,in Zoltan Fejos, ed, Néprajzi Értesítő. Budapest: Museum ofEthnography.Kremenšek, Slavko (1994), ‘Slovenska etnologija in mesta’, inEtnolog 4. Ljubljana: Slovenski etnografski muzej.Miklavčič Brezigar, Inga (1997), Spomini naše mladosti. Etnološkipregled povojnih dogodkov na Goriškem. Katalog krazstavi. Nova Gorica: Goriški muzej.Roženbergar Šega, Tanja (2000), ‘Curator Ethnologist – TheChronicler of the City’, in Irena Keršič, ed, Challenges forEthnographical and Social History museums looking to the newmillennium. Proceedings of the 3rd general conference NET.Ljubljana: Slovenski etnografski muzej.122

connecting collecting: author presentationsAuthor presentationsZelda Baveystock is a lecturer in Museum Studiesat the International Centre for Cultural and HeritageStudies (ICCHS) at Newcastle University. Prior to joiningICCHS, she was Senior Keeper of History at Tyne andWear Museums (TWM). She managed a large-scale contemporarycollecting project, Making History, in 2000and subsequently established the new curatorial postof Keeper of Contemporary Collecting for the museumservice. E-mail: zelda.baveystock@ncl.ac.ukBirgitta Dahl is chairman of the Board of NordiskaMuseet, former Speaker of Parliament and formerMinister of Environment. E-mail: 34dahl@telia.comJan Dolák is a museologist and holder of the UNESCOChair of Museology and World Heritage at MasarykUniversity in Brno, where he teaches collection management,management and marketing of museums and thehistory of Czech museums. Before 2001, when he startedat Masaryk University, he was the manager of a numberof Czech museums. He was a member of Executive Boardof the Czech Association of Museums and Galleries, andfor two years the President of the Association. He is alsoa member of the Board of ICOFOM. E-mail: dolak@phil.muni.czEva-Sofi Ernstell has been Head of Collections, TheArmy Museum, Stockholm, since 2005. She has an MAin art history and has been working in the museum fieldsince 1983, as an educator and with collection issues.She was formerly the head of collections at the RoyalArmoury. At the moment she is running several projectsfor collecting, sorting out and increasing the number oflong-term loans, to minimize storage space and to createan overview of the collections. E-mail: eva-sofi.ernstell@armemuseum.seChristine Fredriksen has a MA in ethnology and is responsiblefor the ethnological collection/contemporarystudies at Bohuslän Museum. She is a member of theboard of several cultural-history associations within theregion, Västarvet, as well as chairman of the Samdok poolfor Domestic Life and Leisure. She specializes in youthculture, industrial society, maritime culture and conservationof the maritime heritage, oral history and contemporaryhistory. E-mail: christine.fredriksen@vgregion.seEva Fägerborg has a Ph D in ethnology and has since2003 been in charge of the Samdok Secretariat. She hasfor many years been engaged in museums’ contemporarystudies and has also written about methodological issues.E-mail: eva.fagerborg@nordiskamuseet.seJan Garnert obtained the title of docent in ethnologyand works as research coordinator at the Museum ofScience and Technology in Stockholm. His publishedworks deal mainly with the cultural history of technology,particularly the cultural history of lighting anddarkness, and telephony. In his article ‘Rethinking VisualRepresentation’ in Nordic Museology 1995:2, he discussesthe use of pictorial evidence in cultural history studies.E-mail: jan.garnert@tekniskamuseet.seInger Jensen is Deputy Director and Head Curator atthe Norwegian Museum of Cultural History and Mag.art. in ethnology. She has conducted research and publishedworks on maritime culture, women’s culture,households, leisure-time activities, local history and oncontemporary documentation. She was the head of theproject group that the Norwegian Museum Authority(NMU) initiated on contemporary documentation andresearch in Norwegian Museums, and is a member ofvarious committees and boards within the museum sector.E-mail: inger.jensen@norskfolkemuseum.no123

connecting collecting: author presentationsIlze Knoka is curator and project manager since 1995at the Latvia State Museum Administration in Riga.She is also reading modules at the Museology MasterProgram at the Latvian Academy of Culture (CollectionManagement, Museum Communication and Education)and teaches on the vocational training programme at theLatvian State Authority on Museums. E-mail: ilzemilzis@yahoo.comAnna Kotańska has a Ph D in art history. She is Seniorcurator and Head of the Iconography Department in theHistorical Museum of Warsaw; author and co-author ofpublications and exhibitions devoted to Warsaw. E-mail:a.kotanska@mwh.plKylea Little has worked for the Tyne and Wear Museums,Newcastle, UK, for three years and has been in the postof Keeper of Contemporary Collecting for almost twoyears. Her first project was a large-scale digital collectingproject with both the History and Outreach teams calledMemory Net. E-mail: kylea.little@twmuseums.org.ukHans Manneby, Director General at Västarvet andChairman of ICOM Sweden. Passed away in March2008.Catherine Marshall is Visual Arts Adviser, Touring andCollections, Arts Council of Ireland. She is secondedfrom the Collections Department of the Irish Museumof Modern Art to the Arts Council. Currently she is alsodoing Pd D research on the history of art collecting inIreland in the 20 th century. E-mail: catherine.marshall@artscouncil.ieChristina Mattsson Director, Nordiska Museet andChair of the Samdok Council E-mail: christina.mattsson@nordiskamuseet.seElizabeth Ellen Merritt is Founding Director, Centerfor the Future of Museums, American Association ofMuseums, Washington D.C. The Center is the nationalvenue in the U.S. for the identification, prioritization, andexploration of issues facing museums, their role in society,and trends for their future. In addition, she serves asliaison to the Ethics Committee of the AAM Board, whichis currently tackling issues related to cultural property.She teaches and writes extensively on museum standardsand best practices. E-mail: emerritt@aam-us.orgLeif Pareli is a Social Anthropologist working as curatorat the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, mostlywith Sami culture and various minority issues. Lately hehas turned his attention to the many Sami living in thecity, which is becoming an important aspect of contemporarySami life. E-mail: leif.pareli@norskfolkemuseum.noLykke L Pedersen is curator and Senior researcher atthe National Museum of Denmark and associate professorat the University of Copenhagen. Her main researchareas include cultural history and cultural processes,contemporary collecting and research, material culturestudies, artefacts and biographies, consumption, industriallife, food culture and kitchens. E-mail: lykke.pedersen@natmus.dkCiraj Rassool is Head of the History Department at theUniversity of the Western Cape in South Africa, wherehe also directs the African Programme in Museum andHeritage Studies. His most recent book is South AfricanFamily Stories: Reflections on an experiment in exhibition-making(Amsterdam: Tropenmuseum Bulletin Series 2007,with Leslie Witz and Paul Faber). He is a trustee of theDistrict Six Museum. E-Mail: crassool@uwc.ac.zaRiina Reinvelt is Chief Treasurer at the EstonianNational Museum, Tartu, and Lecturer in Museologyat the University of Tartu, Viljandi Culture Academy.In 2001 she presented her MA thesis Ingeri elud ja lood:Kultuurianalüütiline eluloouurimus [Ingrian life and stories:Cultural analytical study of life stories] and currently sheis a Ph D student in ethnology at the University of Tartu.E-mail: riina@erm.eeTanja Roženbergar Šega has a MA in ethnology andmuseology. As a secretary for movable cultural herit-124

connecting collecting: author presentationsage she was employed at the Ministry of Culture of theRepublic of Slovenia. Now she is a curator ethnologist atthe Museum of Recent History Celje, where she establishedthe department of urban ethnology. A special areaof her work is School of Museology Celje. E-mail: tanja.rozenbergar@guest.arnes.siFredrik Svanberg has a Ph D in Archaeology, specializingin the Viking Age in a post-colonial perspective. Hehas worked within contract archaeology for several yearsas well as in museums. Currently he is a Research andDevelopment Coordinator at the Museum of NationalAntiquities in Sweden. E-mail: fredrik.svanberg@historiska.seRebecca Thomlinson has worked at the British PostalMuseum & Archive in London for the past four years andsince November 2006 as Assistant Curator, with mainresponsibility for acquiring contemporary material forthe collection and developing and managing a policy toreflect this. E-mail: rebecca.thomlinson@postalheritage.org.ukThomas Ulrich, ethnologist, works at the NorwegianTelecom Museum, specializing in minority questions,mainly regarding the northernmost parts of Norway.His most recent work, Fra sentral til siste stolpe (‘To theend of the line’), is a movie documentary giving a backwardglance at how telecommunication took shape in ascarcely populated Sami area. E-mail: thomas.ulrich@telemuseum.noKatty H. Wahlgren has a Ph D in Archaeology, specializingin Scandinavian rock carvings and Bronze Agesociety. She has worked as a university lecturer and indifferent ways within the field of public archaeology. Sheis currently the project manager of Public Archaeology atthe Museum of National Antiquities in Sweden. E-mail:katty.wahlgren@historiska.seThomas Michael Walle is curator at the NorwegianMuseum of Cultural History and Cand.polit. in SocialAnthropology. He is currently concluding a Ph D projecton masculinity, ethnicity and popular culture within theNorwegian Pakistani community, and has publishedseveral articles based on his fieldwork in Norway andPakistan. His main field of interest at the museum is recentmigration into Norway and the challenges posedby cultural diversity in society and at museums. E-mail:thomas.walle@norskfolkemuseum.noAnna Żakiewicz has a Ph D in contemporary art history.Senior curator and Head of the Contemporary Printsand Drawings Department at the National Museum inWarsaw since 1996. She is the author of 77 publications(books, exhibition catalogues, articles, essays, reviews)on twentieth-century art and particularly on the artistStanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. She is also the editor oftwo websites: www.mnw.art.pl and www.witkacy.hg.plE-mail: azakiewicz@mnw.art.plElin von Unge has a Master's degree in InternationalMuseum Studies and has been involved in the proceedingsof the conference Connecting Collecting as co-editor.E-mail: elinvonunge@yahoo.se125

connecting collecting: appendixConnecting CollectingAn international conference on collecting as a key to the future of museums in a global communityNordiska Museet, Stockholm, Sweden15–16 November 2007Thursday 15 November11.00–12.30 Registration13.00 Opening and welcome addressesBIRGITTA DAHL, Chairman of the Board,Nordiska Museet, former Speaker of Parliament,former Minister of EnvironmentHANS MANNEBY, Director General, Västarvet,Chairman of ICOM SwedenCHRISTINA MATTSSON, Director,Nordiska Museet13.20 EVA FÄGERBORGSamdok Secretariat, Nordiska MuseetThe Swedish Samdok network.Slideshow: Images of Contemporary Sweden13.40 Keynote: ELIZABETH MERRITT, Director,Museum Advancement & Excellence,American Association of MuseumsBeyond the cabinet of curiosities: Towards a modernrationale of collecting14.30 Coffee & tea15.00–16.00 PapersREBECCA THOMLINSONThe British Postal Museum & Archive, UKCollecting the here and now: Contemporary Collectingat The British Postal Museum & ArchiveLYKKE PEDERSENNational Museum of DenmarkThe world upside down: Contemporary documentationof the celebration of the royal wedding 2004KATTY H WAHLGREN &FREDRIK SVANBERGMuseum of National Antiquities, SwedenArchaeological collecting, the contemporary and publicinvolvement16.00 Short break16.10–16.50 PapersINGER JENSEN &THOMAS MICHAEL WALLE,Norwegian Museum of Cultural HistoryNorway – a multicultural society: Documentation andpresentation of recent migration to Norway through theproject “Norwegian – yesterday, today, tomorrow?”Objectives for a follow-upKYLEA LITTLETyne and Wear Museums, UKOutreach and contemporary collecting inTyne and Wear MuseumsCHRISTINE FREDRIKSENBohuslän County Museum, SwedenYouth across the border – a Nordic perspectiveon activities over the border17.00–18.00 Presentations of two new exhibitions inthe Nordiska Museet:EVA SILVÉN SápmiJOHAN KNUTSSON The Mega Collector18.15 Buses leave for the City Hall19.00 The City of Stockholm invites you to a receptionwith buffet in the City HallFriday 16 November08.30 Morning mingle and coffee09.30 Keynote: CIRAJ RASSOOL, Professor,Department of History, University ofWestern Cape, South AfricaMuseum and heritage documentation and collectingbeyond modernism: Lessons from South Africa for thefuture.10.15 Short break10.30–11.40 PapersZELDA BAVEYSTOCKNewcastle University, UKRelevance and representation: The state ofcontemporary collecting in the UKJAN DOLAKMasaryk University, Brno, Czech RepublicDocumentation of the recent period inthe Czech RepublicTHOMAS ULRICHNorwegian Telecom MuseumA changing approach – a changing identity: Evaluatingthe collection at the Norwegian Telecom MuseumILZE KNOKALatvia State Museum AdministrationCollecting contemporaneity in Latvia. Communicativeand professional aspectsJAN GARNERTNational Museum of Science and Technology,SwedenWhen old collections renew: On exploring culturalmeanings of radio receivers and satellite dishes.11.40– 13.00 Lunch in the museum restaurant13.00–14.00 PapersANNA KOTANSKA ´The Historical Museum of Warsaw, PolandPhotos collection in the Historical Museum of WarsawKARI-ANNE PEDERSENNorwegian Museum of Cultural HistoryWhen we collect – meeting people and their thingsRIINA REINVELTEstonian National MuseumCollections of national museum and stereotypesLEIF PARELINorwegian Museum of Cultural HistorySami heritage in museum collections: Its role ineducation and inspiration to the Sami and to the worldEVA-SOFI ERNSTELLThe Army Museum, SwedenWho is the keeper? Collecting and storing inthe national Swedish museums of military history14.00 Coffee & tea14.30 Concluding discussions – formation of aninternational collecting network.16.00 Closing of the conferenceModerator: Moa Matthis126